


The Dark King

by Blue_Night



Series: Panthera [1]
Category: Football RPF, Original Work, Real Person Fiction
Genre: Alien Technology, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Anal Sex, Canon-Typical Violence, Dubious Consent, Explicit Sexual Content, Falling In Love, Feeding, Forgiveness, Happy Ending, Hope, Human Experimentation, Hurt/Comfort, Imprisonment, Kissing, Love/Hate, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pain, Secrets, Sharing a Body, Telepathic Bond, Telepathy, a threesome of a special kind, depictions of violence and fights, mentioning of experiments, mentioning of fights, mentioning of gene therapy, painful memories, the inspiration came from my beloved Wraith but this is different
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-19
Updated: 2017-12-03
Packaged: 2019-02-04 09:26:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 8
Words: 26,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12767970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blue_Night/pseuds/Blue_Night
Summary: Marco Reus is a young figther pilot, fighting against the armada of the Dark King to keep him from destroying his home world. What will happen when his plane crashes and the Dark King takes him as his prisoner? Will he be able to keep the Dark King from taking revenge for what Marco's people have done to him?





	1. Imprisoned

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mariothellama](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mariothellama/gifts).



> My dearest mariothellama,  
> I decided to finally, finally give in to writing the really dark Leweus-fic I have in mind for about a year. The setting is a little bit different to the original setting I had in mind, this is settled in a future world instead of an ancient setting, and my inspiration came from my still cherished Stargate Atlantis series. The Dark King is a mixture of Michael Kenmore, the Wraith-human hybrid showing up there, and something akin to a shapeshifter, I guess. (I also couldn't help but deal with Robert's strange new taste as you will see.. ;-))
> 
> Knowing that you actually appreciate dark Leweus now and then, I want to gift this to you for several reasons you probably know but which I don't want to mention here. I really hope that you will enjoy reading this fic, the length of it will depend on what you think of this fic and my muse - which might want me to write more than the two or three chapters I'm aiming for at the moment.
> 
> Thank you for your friendship and outstanding and ongoing support, I hope that you will like this. <33
> 
> Warning: this work contains dubious consent and depiction of violence and mentioning of experiments with humans. If you might triggered by this content, please don't read this fic.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mario wakes up in a prison cell and meets the Dark King for the first time in his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope that Robert comes across as mysterious as I wanted him to be. :-)

The heavy iron chains rattled quietly when the prisoner came to again, the only sound audible except for the soft groan that escaped the young man's dry and swollen lips when he tried to orientate himself.

Marco slowly blinked his eyes open to look around, struggling to remember what had happened when his fighter had gone down and crashed on the burnt ground of the planet. He must have lost consciousness after his crash because he couldn't remember anything as much as he tried, and thinking was hard with every single bone aching in his body.

Someone must have taken care of his injuries though, because he could see bandages wrapped around his arm when he turned his head to the side, the once probably white garment now stained dark-red from his blood. His former neat uniform hung in shreds from his body, and there were more stains, dried blood and dirt from machine oil and the dark soil of the burnt field where he had landed snout-first with his fighter. Marco listened inwardly for a moment, but his injuries couldn't be too severe, because the ache was bearable and he didn't feel too dizzy or nauseous or weak, just thirsty and confused – which was to be expected after his crash.

The cell where he was tied to one of the damp stone walls was dark apart from the gloomy shimmer that fell through the slit under the door opposite him, and it seemed to be empty as well, but the small and of mold and mortality stinking room was too dark to tell that for sure, the shadows adding to the spooky atmosphere.

A sudden motion next to the door caught Marco's attention, and his eyes widened as he watched the other person who must have watched him for quite some time slowly coming closer to him. Marco's throat went dry when he realized who the other one staring intently at him now was, and he unconsciously lifted his chin up in defiance in order not to show his fear.

The other man was a little bit taller than Marco, his lithe but strong frame reminding the blond prisoner of one of those deep black predators that ruled the thick jungles of Marco's home planet and a lot of other worlds in this galaxy as well, sleek, graceful and beautiful but lethally dangerous to everyone who might get lost in their territories.

The impression was increased by the clothes his captor wore, a long and tightly fitting pitch-black leather coat with a high collar that was more an armor than a real coat, swinging around long and elegant legs dressed in the same skin-tight black leather. Marco couldn't see what kind of shirt the other man wore underneath his coat, but he guessed that it must be black as well.

Marco swallowed when his gaze traveled upwards to the face of his captor, which was partly hidden in the shadows but close enough to make out the details of his features when the stranger stopped in front of him, leaving only a few inches of space between them.

The man stared silently at him and Marco stared back, taking in the sight of the one who had the power to decide whether Marco would wake up the next morning or die before the sun was rising again.

His captor would have been breathtakingly beautiful if it hadn't been for his pale, almost gray-bluish skin and his expressionless features that made him look like a lifeless statue and not like a living and breathing being. Marco could see the sensor slits at each side of his elegant nose flaring with the man's inaudible breaths, sensor slits that separated him from any other human Marco knew. They were smaller than the sensor slits of the black predators he must be related to in some way, but long enough to draw Marco's attention to them, and the blond fighter pilot swallowed when the strong and musky scent of his captor filled his own nostrils. He didn't know how it was possible that a human man could be related to these dangerous animals, but he had heard the rumors about his captor's appearance and origin from his brothers in arms, and he realized now that they had spoken the truth and that he had been wrong about the true nature of _him_.

He tore his gaze away from the slits to look at the surprisingly sensitive lips the other man called his own, lips that were almost as pale as his skin was. Marco cautiously raised his eyes to finally meet the other one's gaze, and he couldn't suppress the cold shiver running down on his spine when their eyes locked.

Marco had never seen eyes like these before, eyes of an ice-cold blue, glowing with hate and anger as the stranger returned his scrutiny, his face still an impassive mask. His eyes would have been as beautiful as his face with those handsome and almost aristocratic features, but the hard and cold expression deterred Marco, and he instinctively pressed himself against the hard wall he was chained to, staring into these bottomless icy-blue orbs without any chance to look away as long as his captor wanted to hold his gaze.

It was almost a shock when he suddenly opened his mouth, and his voice wasn't like Marco had expected it to be at all, not cold and hard like his appearance but warm and smooth like dark honey.

“You know who I am, fighter pilot Marco Reus, don't you?”

His words broke the spell Marco had found himself under, and he slowly nodded his head, his gaze darting to the other man's hair. It was thick and short at his nape and his sides, but longer and styled to a stiff quiff on top of his head. The color was not the color one would have expected considering the young and ageless features, though, and it increased the strangeness of his captor. Marco had imagined his hair to be as black as his coat was, but it was actually gray like the crystalline rime covering the grass before the long winter came, and Marco couldn't help but wonder why this was the case because gray didn't seem to be his natural hair color.

Yet he knew quite well who his captor was, and he nodded his head again, looking the other one straight into his eyes when he said:

“Yes, I know who you are. You are the Dark King.”

 

***

 

The Dark King glided closer like one of his animal predator relatives, baring his white teeth to something akin to a smile, but his eyes shone with hate and ire, and Marco flinched back with mortal fear, but the wall was unyielding and he couldn't get away from his captor.

“Yes, I am the Dark King. I've once had a name like you have, Marco Reus, but your race came to my planet to experiment with my people, and the creature they turned me into wasn't worthy to have a name any longer. But your people didn't break me, and I became stronger than they had ever thought it possible, and my armada will defeat your race and let them pay for what they have done to my planet.”

Marco lifted his chin up. “So you've brought me here to get the information you need to defeat my race? This will never happen, I'd rather die than tell you anything.”

The Dark King chuckled, and Marco was struck again at the warm and soft tone of the other man's voice. “No, I didn't bring you here for information, Marco. I don't need your knowledge to defeat your fighters. You're here to finally learn what your brothers and sisters have done to me. I want you to experience the same pain and despair I've gone through again and again when they brought me to these cells to do their cruel experiments and turn me into the monster I am now. Have you ever come close to one of the pantheras living in your home world, Marco Reus? Have you ever felt the pain when one of them fed on you?”

Marco stared at the Dark King with wide eyes, his mind racing with his thoughts. “They can't have done that. It's only a legend that the pantheras change their appearance and feed on humans.”

The ice-blue eyes staring back at him narrowed in fury. “You don't believe your own words, I can see that, Marco. You know that it's more than only a legend. But I'll give you a foretaste of the 'pleasures' awaiting you to show you that I'm not lying to you.”

The Dark King took a few steps forward, invading Marco's personal space, and the coldness radiating from him was overwhelming. Marco hadn't felt the cold over the distance the Dark King had kept to him so far, but he couldn't move anything but his little finger any longer when the Dark King's icy breath ghosted over his face.

The other man stared at him for several long seconds, silently and with a strange expression on his face – as if he was searching for something Marco didn't know what it was. But the short moment was over all too soon, and the Dark King moved his face closer to Marco's until their lips were almost touching.

“Feel the kiss of the panthera, Marco,” the Dark King whispered as he pressed his cold lips onto Marco's mouth. Searing pain shot through Marco's body, freezing coldness burning him where the Dark King touched him, and Marco howled with the unbearable pain, his body convulsing in agony. The face looming over him changed from human to the face of the black predator, back and forth and back and forth again until Marco felt dizzy and sick, but the sight was sharp and clear despite his dizziness, and his kiss was freezing cold and burning hot at the same time, sucking the little energy Marco had still possessed after his crash out of his cramping body. Marco wanted to push him away, and he raised his fists to hammer weakly against the Dark King's chest, but the other male didn't even flinch, just kept kissing him until Marco thought that he would die the next second.

His desperate scream echoed in the dark cell and Marco fell into the pitch-black darkness of another unconsciousness when the next wave of ice-cold blue fire shot through his tortured body, erasing every coherent thought.

 

***

 

They had brought him to another gloomy room when Marco woke up the next time.

The chamber was actually rather large and served as a bedroom and a living room at the same time, but Marco was not in the mood to appreciate the comfort.

The first hours after his second awakening he was too weak and too much in pain to do more than curl himself up on the cozy bed, his body craving sleep but his mind keeping him awake. The blond fighter pilot knew that he should be grateful that the Dark King didn't keep him in the small cell and chained to a stonewall any longer, but he wasn't foolish enough to think that his captor had found some love blooming for Marco deep in his heart all of a sudden, but merely wanted to make sure that his prisoner stayed as healthy and well as possible given the circumstances; and Marco would actually have preferred to stay in the cell instead of the larger room.

The chamber didn't have a window or another opening that would have given him the chance to count the time that passed in any way, and Marco hadn't been surprised that his watch and equipment had been taken away from him during his unconsciousness. His identity mark wasn't there anymore either, the familiar weight of the necklace around his neck gone. He wasn't sure how long he had been out, but it had been night when his fighter had been shot, and Marco didn't think that more than two or three could have passed since the soldiers of the Dark King had trapped him.

His prison cell was much more comfortable now, the furniture consisting of a large bed, a table with two chairs and a shelf attached to the wall opposite the table, but it was still a prison cell, and Marco hated it with all of his heart. There was also a tiny cell adjoining his chamber that contained a sink and a toilet, and Marco forced himself out of the bed to wash away the traces the Dark King had left on him with the cold water the faucet offered as the only temperature. It was cold but much warmer than his touch had been, and Marco scrubbed his skin with the sponge he found on the small shelf over the sink until it was red.

His uniform hadn't survived the crash, and someone must have undressed him during his unconsciousness, providing him with black pants and a shirt shimmering almost golden in the light of the lonely bulb hanging from the ceiling. Yellow and black had always been Marco's favorite colors, and his uniform had been yellow and black as well, but the black reminded him too much of the Dark King now. The only reason why he kept his pants on was that he didn't want to walk around naked when his captor visited him again, something he dreaded and hoped for at the same time.

There had been a platter with food and water waiting for him on the table when he had emerged from the tiny restroom, a plate filled with fruits and bread, and Marco had hesitated to touch the food at first, but he knew that he had to keep his strength, which meant that he needed to eat whether he liked it or not.

Marco had sniffed at the water but hadn't smelled anything suspicious, and his throat had burnt with thirst, so he had taken the risk and drunk the water. Nothing had happened afterwards, and it was the same with the fruits and the bread.

Marco had tried to sleep again but given up his fruitless attempts after some time, and he was pacing up and down like a caged lion when the door to his prison opened without any warning, no footsteps or other sounds having announced the arrival of a visitor.

Marco whirled around, staring at the open door with balled fists, ready to attack and defend himself, and he gulped for air and felt a sudden rush of adrenaline surging through his still aching body when he saw who his unexpected visitor was.

The Dark King tilted his head to the side, closing the door behind himself and stalking closer, his pale blue eyes glowing in a strange light.

“Hello Marco, I'm pleased to see you awake. I hope that you have missed me as much as I've missed you.”


	2. Starved

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marco has met the Dark King for the first time, and the other male has let the panthera inside him feed on Marco by kissing him. Will he kill Marco the next time he visits him again in his prison, or will he keep him alive to take revenge at him for what Marco's race has done to him and his brethren?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My dear mariothellama,  
> I'm so happy that you liked the first chapter of your gift, and that you appreciate me finally writing the dark Leweus fic I wanted to write for almost a year. This chaper turned out to be a little different from what I had in mind, the Dark King refused to 'kiss' Marco so soon again... ;-P  
> I know that you follow and like my Pegasus Alliance stories from the Stargate fandom, but I am not sure how familiar you actually are with the series. This chapter is strongly inspired by my all-time favorite episode ever: 'Common Ground' from season 3, when John Sheppard meets Todd for the first time. :-)  
> My Dark King is probably a mixture of a Wraith and a human sharing his body with a Tok'Ra (the nice version of a Goa'uld).  
> I hope that you will like the second chapter as well, the length of this story will probably depend on what you think of it and how fast you want Marco to discover the Dark King's human side and come closer to it. :-)

The Dark King watched several emotions flicker over the handsome features of his blond prisoner, the tiniest hint of fear the young man suppressed instantly again because he wasn't willing to show his captor that he was scared of him, and there were anger, despair, defiance, confusion and determination visible in his beautiful eyes as well. But the strongest emotion was for sure the hate that made Marco's eyes shine in a dangerous golden fire - the hate every human being felt when they only heard his name.

The Dark King had had many human prisoners over the last centuries, but none of them had been like Marco Reus was, the young and dauntless fighter pilot who met his gaze with hate, bravery and defiance instead of fear, despair and hopelessness. None of his former prisoners had tasted as sweet and delicious as Marco had tasted, his strength and his life energy tingling so tantalizing on his tongue that he had barely managed to stop before it was too late.

The Dark King glided closer, craving to taste Marco again – to let the panthera that was normally locked deep inside him rise to the surface again and take what was rightfully his because of what Marco Reus' human ancestors had done to him and his people.

There were only few of his brethren left, and he was the most powerful one of them, the only one who could protect his brothers and sisters – the only one powerful enough to take revenge for the merciless cruelty his own race had to suffer ever since the first humans had come to his planet and realized the potential that offered itself to them so easily in the helpless beings that had welcomed the newcomers like long-awaited gods.

Only that the gods had betrayed his own ancestors, turned them into monsters and killed those who hadn't met their heartless gods' expectations.

The Dark King suppressed an angry hiss, not wanting to let the most uncommon human he had ever met see his own feelings. He hated Marco as much as the blond pilot hated him, but he felt also drawn in to him in a a way he had never felt drawn in to anybody else in his long life so far, and Marco fascinated him deeply and almost scared him. The Dark King didn't fear that Marco would be able to defeat him physically - he was much stronger than Marco would ever be, even in his weak and starved state - but he sensed that Marco was the only one actually being able to tear down the thick walls he had built around his heart to protect himself from ever getting hurt again by any other human.

Marco had watched him silently until now, his arms folded across his chest as if to protect himself. The Dark King had to show him respect for appearing so brave and unmoved, because every other human would have broken down and begged him to show mercy after having experienced the panthera's deadly cold kiss. But Marco Reus didn't break down and beg him for mercy, he only raised one of his red-golden eyebrows at him, and there was only the slightest hint of trembling in his voice when he finally spoke up:

“Missed you? Surely not, Dark King. Why would I miss you of all people? You're my enemy, wanting to extinguish my race, you're cruel and heartless, and it is clear that you came to torture me again. Your 'kiss' will slowly kill me in the most painful way possible, and it would be foolish to miss you, wouldn't it?”

The Dark King balled his fists with the sudden rush of red fury washing over him, and his eyes shot ice-cold blue fire at his prisoner as he stalked closer to make his prey step backwards. Marco however refused to give him what he craved for and stubbornly stayed where he was, not even flinching when his cold breath grazed over the human's pale cheek. Standing so close to each other, the Dark King could see the lines and crinkles his kiss had carved into Marco's still youthful face, the astonishing red-golden color of his hair faded to a dull yellow.

It had been a rather long time since the creature inside him had last fed on another human before Marco, and the Dark King realized with something akin to dismay that the panthera had taken much more of Marco's life energy than he had been aware of before this moment, much more than he had wanted him to take. He could still taste Marco on his tongue, his unique scent tempting him to step closer and quench the fire of his hunger burning deep inside him. The black predator inside him growled and tried to take over control, craving to feed on the astonishing human again, threatening to take control over his actions against his human host's will.

Marco's eyes became dark with loathe and contempt when he noticed the inner battle his captor was fighting, and he smiled grimly in a defiant and angry challenge. “Come on, 'kiss' me again, Dark King. Let your panthera drain me, I'd rather die right here and now than stay your prisoner for longer. I am too weak to fight against you, especially after your first kiss. Finish me – that's what you came her for after all, isn't it?”

The blond fighter pilot had balled his own fists, his voice hoarse with the mortal fear every living being felt facing its lethal enemy, but it was also firm and didn't waver. Marco Reus wouldn't beg for his life, the Dark King realized with astonishment, and he stepped back and took a deep breath to calm himself down and win back the upper hand over his dark side. He was pretty sure that the young man didn't really know what he was asking for, that Marco hadn't noticed so far how close he actually was to losing control and killing him in order to survive himself.

“I actually came here to talk to you, Marco. I have no intention to kill you – at least not now – I could have kept you in your cell if I wanted to kill you, right? Why bothering with making it as comfortable for you as possible if all I wanted to do was to kill you right now?”

Marco just shrugged his shoulders. “I don't know. Perhaps you just prefer 'nicer' surroundings when you kiss your prisoners to death? This is as much just another prison cell as the other cell has been, so don't expect me to thank you for you having brought me here while I was unconscious.”

His brave words pulled a truly amused chuckle from the Dark King. “I didn't expect you to thank me, Marco, don't worry. I would probably be disappointed if you actually did that.”

Marco snorted. “I'm relieved to hear that you find me cooperative.”

The Dark King raised his hand to stroke his crinkled cheek. Marco didn't try to pull away, but his eyes shot golden fire of hate and loathe at him again and his breathing sped up with a new wave of fear. “I'm sorry for having caused you pain, Marco. I know that you don't believe me, but I'm telling the truth. It had been a long time since my panthera was last able to feed, and you're the most delicious human he's ever tasted.”

“Am I, really? Shall I feel honored or pleased now? You should really work on your attempts to make compliments, Dark King.” Marco pressed his lips to a thin line, and he couldn't hide his fear from his captor that the male with the gray hair and the icy-blue eyes would let his panthera feed on him again.

The Dark King turned around and walked over to the table to sit down on one of the chairs. “It can't be so bad if you're still able to make jokes. As I said, I came here to talk to you, Marco. Sit down and tell me something about you.”

The blond human hesitated, not wanting to give his enemy the satisfaction of obeying his orders, but he hadn't had fully recovered from his crash when the Dark King had fed on his life energy the previous day, and he was too exhausted and weak to stand upright on his two feet for more than perhaps half an hour.

The Dark King waited patiently for the young man to make up his mind, watching him silently with an unreadable face, and after three more seconds, Marco sighed and came over to the table to sit down on the other chair.

“I don't want to talk to you, Dark King, so this will be a pretty one-sided conversation.”

“I could make you want to talk to me, Marco Reus,” the Dark King purred with a dangerous smile, pulling another snort from his prisoner.

“I have no doubts that you can do that, Dark King. But it wouldn't count because it wouldn't be a conversation in the real sense of the meaning then. And I can see that this is what you actually want from me.”

The Dark King acknowledged Marco's small victory with a nod of his head. “You have a point, Marco. I want your cooperation – at least to some point. Would you be so kind to tell me something about you?”

Marco leaned back in his chair and narrowed his eyes. “You know everything about me you need to know from my identity mark and the black box of my fighter. There is nothing else that could be of any interest for you.”

“You're underestimating yourself, my dear Marco.” The Dark King felt intrigued against his will, and the panthera inside him growled hungrily, demanding to be allowed to take by force what the cheeky human was denying them. His head was spinning from the effort to keep the predator raging deep in his core at bay, and he had to close his eyes for a moment. He could feel Marco's eyes upon his face, amber-golden orbs looking right through the facade he wore for longer than he could actually remember, staring right into his dark and tortured soul.

“You're starved. Dangerously starved – close to dying, I mean. Aren't you, Dark King?”

It was a statement, not a real question, plain-spoken and without any judgment, as unbelievable as it seemed to be considering Marco's words from a couple of minutes ago. He had expected triumph and contentment about his state to show in his voice when the blond human finally realized the truth, but Marco only sounded astonished and confused.

The Dark King slowly opened his eyes again, returning Marco's attentive gaze impassively.

“I'm probably lucky then that you took only so little.” Marco absentmindedly touched the lines and crinkles carved into his cheeks. “How long has it been since you've last fed before you captured me?”

The Dark King shrugged, his shoulders moving awkwardly under the heavy leather coat. “Would it change your opinion about me if I told you that?”

“No, it wouldn't. I'm just curious.”

“I thought so.” The Dark King resisted the urge to bite down on his lip to keep himself from pulling Marco from his chair and drain him until all that was left of him would be a crumpled shell.

The burning hunger had been his constant and faithful companion over the last decades, and he had somehow gotten used to it, being able to ignore it most of the time and focus on his research and on creating the android robots he needed to defeat his enemies.

But his hunger for human life energy had started to rage in every cell of his starved and tortured body the minute his soldiers had brought the unconscious blond human pilot to him, the small voice whispering in his mind that he had every right to take all of the young man's life energy because he was his enemy and belonged to the race that had condemned him to a fate worse than death becoming louder and louder with every hour that passed.

The hunger was like a blazing fire that had gotten out of control, like a thunderstorm that destroyed entire planets, and he knew that he wouldn't be able to fight against it for much longer if he stayed, his dark side becoming stronger and almost uncontrollable in Marco's presence.

He had thought about ending his miserable life countless times during the long and dark, lonesome centuries, but he owed his brethren to stay alive and fight for them; and the crash of Marco's plane had aroused the stupid hope in him that fate had brought them together to show him the way out of his misery. But the blond human wasn't any different from all of the other humans he had captured beforehand, refusing to see the cruelty of his own people - stubbornly denying the truth and blaming only him for the war and the cruelties that happened on both sides.

Marco was just like those who had come before him to kill the Dark King, looking at him with the disgust and the curiosity he would regard a rare exhibit with, not wanting to see the starved and scared creature he actually was. The human's delicious smell, still healthy and strong despite the energy he had already taken, filled his nose and tingled on his tongue, and the black predator howled and pushed the mind of his human host back into the farthest corner of his mind without him being able to do anything against it.

The dangerous panthera took over control, jumping from his chair and pulling at Marco's shirt to drag him through the room and press him down onto the bed. His eyes glowed in a blinding silver-blue as he stared down at his prey, his white teeth baring to an inhuman grimace full of lust and hate.

Marco stared up at him, his face snow-white and his eyes dark with the all-consuming fear he must feel, but he didn't fight against him, only bared his own teeth as he spat out.

“I knew that you would do it! Just go ahead, what are you waiting for, Dark King? Kill me with your deadly kiss!”

 

***

 

Marco didn't know what it was making him say those things instead of begging for his life, and he didn't have any doubts that the Dark King would kill him now. The trembling of his hands had proved to Marco how starved and hungry the partly human and partly alien creature must be, hungry and starved to a point where he wasn't capable of reasonable thinking any longer.

The blond fighter pilot was torn between the pity he felt with his captor because he was so clearly in pain and the hate Marco had been raised with, the stories about the Dark King and his determination to take revenge on each and every single human he could capture influencing his own judgment and his view on things.

The war between Earth and the planet where the Dark King lived togther with the few brethren left from his race had started long before Marco's birth, and Marco had always wanted to become a fighter pilot and defeat the Dark King, maybe even be the one killing him with his own hands.

But as he now stared up at the surprisingly handsome male face with the glittering blue eyes, all he could see was a creature haunted by his own actions and his nightmares, a living and breathing being suffering terribly, and he couldn't fight against the other male, no matter how much he wanted to fight for his life.

There was this strange bond between them, a bond that had been formed when the Dark King had kissed him for the first time, and Marco could feel his burning hunger as if it was him being almost starved to death.

The Dark King stared down at him, an inhuman howling sound escaping his lips, and Marco closed his eyes when the overwhelming coldness touched him again, a searing cold that froze his bones instantly and which made his heart race in the weak attempt to keep him alive and let his blood rush faster through his veins and not freeze as well.

The cold lips pressing themselves upon his mouth were surprisingly soft and soothing, arousing the wish in Marco to open his own lips for the Dark King and let the creature inside him feed on him, but the touch and the coldness were gone before Marco had the chance to react and do what he had wanted to do - giving up fighting against the inevitable and letting the panthera suck him dry until he died.

He blinked in confusion, seeing the Dark King sitting on the edge of the bed and staring down at him. A small trickle of dark blood coated his pale lips, and Marco wasn't sure whether it was his own blood or the blood of the other male.

He swallowed against the nausea and dizziness pooling inside his stomach and rising in his throat, and he knew that he should feel relief, anger and hate, relief that his captor hadn't finished what he had been about to do, anger and hate because the Dark King was his sworn enemy, playing with him like a cat would play with a mouse, but all he felt was exhaustion and numbness.

“Why didn't you finish me?” he croaked out, his voice barely more than a husky and strained whisper. “I can feel your hunger, Dark King. I'm too weak to keep you from feeding on me, why did you stop?”

The blue eyes staring down at him became dark with some strange emotions Marco couldn't detect.

“Because it would be too easy, Marco. I want you to suffer like I'm suffering ever since your race came to my world. I want you to know what your ancestors have done to me and my brethren before I take what's rightfully mine. You'd better try to get some sleep now, fighter pilot Marco Reus – because I don't think that you will ever be able to sleep peacefully again after I've shown you what your people did to me and my race.”

With these words the Dark King rose to his feet with awkward movements, turning around and walking over to the door with his coat swinging around his long legs.

Marco watched him leave without trying to make him stay, his throat tight with confusion, fear, anger and disappointment, his thoughts racing in his mind.

Whatever it was the Dark King wanted to show him - Marco was pretty sure that he wouldn't like it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song I listened to while writing this chapter is 'Mein Teil' of the German group Rammstein, partly sung in German, partly in English. The refrain contains the line :'You are what you eat'...


	3. Broken

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Dark King has left Marco without feeding on him again, and the time has come for Marco to learn the truth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My dearest mariothellama,  
> I'm so excited that you appreciate and like your gift so much. This story simply needs to be written, and I am so happy that I can share it with you!! <33
> 
> Trigger warning:
> 
> This chapter contains non-too-graphical descriptions of violence and torture. I tried my best to write it in the most decent way possible and stay vague, but you should be careful if you are easily triggered by such topics.

They came to bring him to another room a couple of hours later.

Marco had fallen asleep on the bed after his captor had left him, too exhausted and confused to do anything else other than just close his eyes and let his mind drift away after his second encounter with the Dark King.

There had been more water and food when he had woken up again, but Marco hadn't touched it. Not because he feared that it would be poisoned, but because he was strangely hesitant to eat when the alien male who had captured him was almost starved to death.

The blond fighter pilot knew that it was ridiculous, stupid and even dangerous to feel this way, but he just couldn't help it.

He had finally quenched his thirst with the cool and fresh water, but the food was still untouched when the door opened again to reveal two of the large creatures Marco had fought against with his fighter squadron standing on the threshold. They looked like giant humans, but Marco knew that they were actually some kind of robots, androids that were programmed to fight, but no living beings in the real sense of the meaning. Their metal bodies were covered with skin to make them look like humans, and Marco had witnessed how much their outer appearances affected other fighter pilots - who found themselves unable to shoot them – one of the reasons why the armada of the Dark King was so successful in the bloody war going on between his home planet and Earth.

“Come with us!” The left guard waved at Marco, and the young fighter pilot followed without objection, knowing that he wouldn't stand a chance against the two robots anyway. Their faces were hidden behind black leather masks, only the lenses behind the small slits glittered in an ice-blue color – the same color as the eyes of the Dark King had.

His guards were dressed with black leather pants, but their torsos were naked, the artificial skin shimmering in a pale pink. Marco avoided looking at them as he exited his rather luxurious prison cell, walking in the middle between them along the gloomy corridor until they reached another door. It glided to the side without making any sound, and Marco could see that there was a lift behind it. He stepped into it, followed by his guards, and the door closed silently behind them again.

Marco looked around, but he couldn't see any buttons or other devices, and the dim yellow glow illuminating the elevator seemed to come through the walls without any visible source of light.

The soft jolt when the elevator started to move downwards proved to him that there had to be some kind of sensor they had probably triggered when they had entered the elevator, and he started to count to get a hint of how long their journey downwards would take them. The lift stopped when he had reached twenty-seven, so they must be rather deep in the core of the planet, because Marco's sense for velocity and acceleration was well-trained due to his job as a fighter pilot, and the lift had rushed down with high speed.

The young man swallowed when he realized that the technology the Dark King used had to be of a much higher standard than the technology of his own race actually was.

Centuries ago, it had been the other way round, but this must have changed over the last decades, being the reason why Earth was about to lose the war.

The elevator door glided into the wall again, and one of the guards pushed against Marco's back.

“Move!”

Marco pressed his lips to a thin line but did as he was told, walking along another long and gloomy corridor until the tunnel ended before two thick metal doors.

The robot-guard standing on his right side lifted his hand up and pressed it against a panel that was perhaps about twenty centimeters above Marco's head, and the two halves of the metal gates glided into the walls with the same spooky silence the elevator door had moved with.

Marco was roughly pushed forward again, and he stumbled into the large hall with a startled groan, instinctively trying to turn around and run back to the lift, but the doors were faster, whooshing shut right before his nose, the black leather masks of the two androids the last thing he saw before the doors closed.

The blond pilot swallowed against the lump in his throat and slowly turned around again to observe to hall with the almost metallically shimmering thick gray stone walls. Marco had no doubts that the walls had a thickness of several kilometers, and he shuddered and rubbed his arms in the useless attempt to warm himself.

The hall was empty except for two lonely chairs at the other end of it, and Marco wondered about the purpose of the large dome before he noticed the thin regular lines crossing the walls and separating them into hundreds of squares - which proved to him that there must be some doors protecting something hidden behind the stone.

Marco was so caught up in his observation and musings that he didn't notice the tall figure suddenly standing in the shadows beside the two chairs until the soft and warm voice of the Dark King made him flinch violently.

“Hello Marco Reus. I'm glad that you find this hall so fascinating. Be assured that there are more fascinating things waiting for you, a whole lot more.”

Marco almost jumped, whirling around and staring at the Dark King. “I'd already guessed that you have your good reasons for having your guards bring me here. I hadn't thought that you'd just missed my sparkling presence,” he joked weakly when he reached the alien male watching him unmoved but with glittering blue eyes, and he was struck by the strange and yet so fascinating beauty of the other man again.

The hair of the Dark King shimmered like liquid platinum in the pale yellow glow coming from some invisible sources of light hidden in the ceiling of the hall, and his chiseled and handsome features reminded Marco of the picture of an ancient god he had once seen in an old book about the long gone Roman culture. Only that the dark King was not an imaginary god but very much alive and very dangerous, Marco's lethal enemy, determined to make him suffer for everything Marco's race had done to him.

“Don't underestimate yourself and the joy your company is giving me, Marco,” the Dark King purred, reaching out to touch Marco's face with cold but gentle fingers in a brief caress. “Sparkling is a good word to describe your mere presence. It is indeed sparkling and very inspiring.”

Marco stared at his captor for a few seconds, at loss for words and too surprised to make another mocking comment.

“Uuhm, I see,” he finally croaked out, “you've obviously taken my advice to heart and worked on your way of making compliments.” Marco could feel heat creeping up into his cold cheeks, and he had to fight against the sudden urge to lean closer and offer his mouth to him for the dangerous kiss of the panthera, the burning hunger he could feel coming off in waves of the Dark King making his own stomach clench even though the beautiful male face was impassive and didn't give the pain the Dark King must feel away.

“I have,” the Dark King said thoughtfully, cupping Marco's face with his cold palm and looking at him as though he was seeing him for the first time in this moment – really seeing him. “Your opinion is important to me, fighter pilot Marco Reus.”

“Is that so?” Marco stepped back when he realized that he had almost closed his eyes and actually searched for his lips.

The hand that had caressed his cheek fell down to his side, but the Dark King didn't look angry as he regarded him. “You haven't eaten, Marco. Why? I can feel your hunger, it pains and weakens you. I told you that your food isn't poisoned, it's the truth.” The warm voice sounded sincere and honest, even a little but hurt about Marco's lack of trust, and the young man realized with astonishment that his captor was actually truly worried about his well-being and his pain.

So it worked both ways, he could feel the hunger of the black creature inside its human host, and the Dark King could feel his hunger and the discomfort it made him feel as well.

Marco bit down on his lip and averted his eyes. “Yes, I believe you that the food isn't poisoned – but I just couldn't. Not after knowing...” his voice trailed off, and he turned his head away in order not to let the other male see his confused feelings.

There was a rather long silence before the Dark King laid his hand under Marco's chin to make him look at him again. Their eyes locked, and there was a strange fire in the silver-blue eyes, a fire that drew Marco in and made him wish to learn more about his captor, to learn everything about his secrets and tear the walls down that kept him from doing so.

“I must admit that I am surprised, fighter pilot Marco Reus, I hadn't expected that.”

The dark King regarded him for a few more seconds before letting go of his chin abruptly. “But may it be as it is, I've brought you here to show you something. Please have a seat, Marco.”

Marco felt bereft of something he didn't really know what it was, and he gritted his teeth and sat down on one of the chairs. The Dark King took the other one, and the stone wall in front of them became transparent.

“And what is it that you want to show me?” Marco asked because he couldn't stand the silence any longer, and the Dark King turned his head and smiled at him. It was a cold and dark smile, the smile of the panthera, not of the human who had talked to Marco just two minutes ago.

“You wanted to learn more about me, Marco Reus, and your wish shall be fulfilled. I want to show you a movie, a movie like you've never seen it before in your entire life,” the voice was as cold now as his smile was, all warmth and softness gone.

“I've watched you for a while when you were busied with looking around. You have surely noticed the thin lines in the walls. There are pods behind these hidden doors, pods where my brothers and sisters sleep in.  
There are only few of my brethren left, and they are sleeping and waiting to be saved from the cruel fate your ancestors 'bestowed' on them. They are sleeping, but it is not a peaceful sleep, fighter pilot Marco Reus.  
They are dreaming in their sleep, the memories of what your brothers and sisters have done to them haunting them even in the deepest sleep the pods can create. These memories are always there, building their dreams they can't escape from, and my brothers and sisters are screaming in their pods, screams no one else can hear except for me. Their screams are in my head the entire time, in every waking hour and they echo loudly in my mind when I try to sleep and keep me awake. I want you listen to their screams and watch their dreams, Marco Reus.”

The ice-blue eyes staring at him shone with fury and hate, and Marco was frozen in place in mortal fear, unable to move and unable to speak. He tried to look away but couldn't, the black predator holding his gaze and baring his teeth to a hateful hiss.

“Look at the wall, Marco! Look at the wall and see what your race has done to mine. Listen to the screams of my brethren! Watch the movie about our history and learn the truth about your own race and about yourself!”

 

***

 

Pain, so much pain. Horrible, unbearable pain.

Screams everywhere, agonizing screams speaking of inhuman cruelty and terrible fear.

Fire burning everywhere in Marco's body when the black creature pressed him down and fed on him again and again, the cruel laughter of his human tormentors echoing louder in his tortured ears than his own desperate screams of pain. Marco thought that he would die just from the pain, from the feeling how his life was sucked out of him, but death didn't come to him, even not when he was too weak to even raise his head from the hard stone where he lay curled up in a dark cell.

His sobbed begging for mercy died away unheard.

More and more gods came, gods dressed in shimmering armors and with weapons in their hands, gods he had welcomed so happily, thinking that they were kind and merciful gods bringing help and peace to them. But there was only darkness and terror, and the black predators came with them, feeding on him and on his family, on the few ones that had been left of their small town.

There was a name Marco didn't know, he could hear the voice of another person scream _'Robert, please, Robert, don't do that, Robert!!'_ but he didn't know who this Robert was. Was he Robert? Or was this Robert someone else?

Marco didn't know why the gods tortured him so much, what he had done to deserve such a punishment, and their explanations that his gods needed an army of invincible warriors didn't make any sense to him. Some of his family and his friends survived the torture and the experiments, but they turned into terrible creatures, always hungry and attacking their own beloved ones to sate their hunger on them, draining them with their deadly and ice-cold kiss.

Marco couldn't hear any other sound despite the cruel laughter of his enemies and the pained screams of his own brethren, they were everywhere in his head, when he was awake, and they followed him into his restless sleep and woke him up again until all Marco craved for was the final darkness to come and swallow him to end this endless horror.

More pain, more screams, an endless loop of burning fire, freezing coldness and more screaming and much more agonizing pain.

_'No! Please, NO!! Let this end, please, LET IT END!!!!!!!'_

 

***

 

Marco bent forward as his stomach cramped, falling down onto his knees and retching bitter bile onto the stony ground before his seat.

There was the soft touch of a cool hand on his forehead supporting him, a soft murmur Marco's tortured ears couldn't detect. He sobbed when a new wave of pain shot through him, dry heaves wrecking his shivering body.

“No, please, don't, don't do this, please, let it end!”

Marco writhed in pain and fear, trying to get away from the soft touch. It was only meant to fool him, meant to deceive him before his tormentors inflicted more pain on him in an new way of torture they had come up with.

“Please, don't let it feed on me again, please, don't do that! Let it end!!”

A new wave of nausea washed over him, and he bent forward again, but his stomach was empty, cramping desperately in the attempt to get rid of something that wasn't there. Cold sweat covered his face, dripping into his eyes, but the soft touch was still there, tender fingers stroking his tear-stained cheeks.

“It's over, Marco, hush, it's over. No more pain, no more screams, it's over, shshshsh...”

“It will never be over, it will never end!” Marco sobbed, squeezing his eyes shut because he didn't want to see those pictures anymore. But they were still there, before his closed lids, burnt in his mind and his memory forever.

He was broken, and he would never be whole again, not after knowing what kind of monster he was.

“Marco, look at me!”

The warm voice sounded so insistent, and Marco opened his hurting eyes because the voice was so soft and warm, so different from the horrible screams that still rang in his ears.

Marco blinked up at the beautiful male face looming over him, silvery-blue eyes looking straight into his soul.

“Pain, it hurts so much!” Marco sobbed brokenly, and the blue eyes watching him became dark with emotions.

“I know, Marco. I will make the pain go away. Don't fight me, I'll make the pain go away.” The beautiful face moved closer, and Marco felt cold lips touch his own in a gentle and yet fierce kiss.

The kiss burned, but it distracted him from the screams and the pain deep inside his mind, his chest and his stomach, and Marco gladly opened his lips to invite his savior in. Strong arms wrapped themselves around him, holding him and protecting him and Marco sagged against the warm body with a small desperate sob. He felt a strange tingling on his tongue and in his from his screams and his vomiting sore throat, and the brief thought that he must taste disgustingly flickered through his mind, but he couldn't bring himself to pull away.

He could still feel the blue eyes watching him even though he had closed his own eyes in the weak attempt to shut out the world, and the tingling became stronger and stronger. There was a soft pull, something tugging at his heart and the flickering flow of his life-force, but it was actually a pleasant feeling, and Marco didn't fight it but let the sensation wash over him.

The pain as his energy floated out of him was surprisingly sweet and delicious, and the tongue moving around in his mouth and the cold lips moving upon his own were perfect. Marco moaned ardently, trying to pull his savior closer and make him deepen his cold kiss, but when he tried that, the black panthera was suddenly there, staring at him with cold blue eyes, baring its teeth and growling angrily.

Marco tried to pull away and scream, but he was trapped and he couldn't move, the arms holding him so much stronger than his own tortured body. The soft pull at his life-stream became violent and painful and Marco hammered with his fists against the other one's chest in mortal fear, fighting and struggling and screaming into the cold mouth still sucking him dry.

His own screams echoed loudly in his ear when the process was suddenly turned around and a hot wave of white energy rushed through his hurting throat and back into his aching body, floating every cell and letting pain explode in his head.

Marco screamed again and then, everything went dark again.


	4. Recovered

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Dark King showed Marco the memories of his brethren, and the panthera kissed him but gave him his life-energy back in the end. What does this mean for both of them?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My dearest mariothellama,  
> I cannot tell you how happy I am that you love my Dark King as much as I do. :-D I seem to be unable to stop writing about him, and the panthera growled at me until I sat down and wrote the next chapter for you. They are slowly making progress, there will be some more rough moments, but the worst might be over. (Depending on what the boys and their black panthera have in mind, that is. No promises, this story is already different from what I thought it would be...)
> 
> I'm really curious what you'll think of this chapter, I added someone very close to my heart to this story. <33

The small woman watched the Dark King pacing up and down in his laboratory with her arms folded across her waist and an unreadable face. He had tried to go back to work after carrying Marco all the way to his quarters, hoping that the important research he had started years ago would finally make any progress and show him the way out of his dilemma, offering him a solution for the problem of how to feed the creature inside him without having to kill other people for that.

But his thoughts circled unstoppable around the blond fighter pilot and the question why the panthera hadn't finished Marco but given him his life back instead – and this without weakening himself even more in the process than he had already been. Something like this had never happened before, and his research and his own experiments had made him believe that reversing the feeding process wasn't possible at all.

He felt stronger than he had felt in months, but his thoughts were spinning in his mind, and the panthera growled and snarled as he tried to break free and take control over the body both of them shared. He was so tired of fighting, so tired of denying the black predator what he craved for, and he didn't know for how much longer he would be able to keep the control over his body and his mind and not lose his reason and free will.

Mathilda's arrival in his lab had given him the welcome excuse to take a break, but her silent scrutiny made him feel uncomfortable for the first time ever since he knew her.

“He's not like you expected him to be at all, is he?” the small woman finally asked quietly when he didn't stop in his restless pacing.

The Dark King turned his head to scowl darkly at her. “No, he isn't.”

“I told you that before, but you didn't want to listen. Marco is special, I could see that right at first sight. Even your robots were more careful with him than they were with the others.” His annoyed glare didn't seem to impress her much because she didn't flinch or show any sign of fear when he crossed the lab with his long coat swinging around his long, elegant legs.

“Yes, you did, Mathilda, and you were right! Is that what you want to hear?” The Dark King rubbed his forehead in a tired gesture, and she stretched her small and slim figure and balanced on her toes to gently press her palms against his temples.

“So much pain, my dear. It would stop if you finally stopped fighting,” she sighed, her warm fingers massaging his temples soothing him instantly. The beautiful male who looked like a young human man and was yet something completely different closed his eyes and allowed a small sigh to escape his lips when the hammering pain behind his temples faded to a dull ache that was better to endure and ignore.

Mathilda stroked his prominent cheekbones with tender thumbs before slowly removing her hands again. “You look much better, almost recovered from the decades of starvation. Even your hair has become darker, the color is more a dark anthracite now than the fair silver it has been, and your lips are not as pale and bloodless any longer as they have been. How much have you taken from him for heaven's sake? He must be more dead than alive now if you took so much at once.” There was no reproach in her voice, only worries and resigned regret for the young fighter pilot who was so different from all the other humans he had captured over the centuries.

The Dark King turned around and went back to the console he had worked at before Mathilda had entered his lab.

“I couldn't control the panthera anymore, Mathilda. He took over control when Marco broke down and I tried to help him,” he said, with his back to her, hesitant to tell her that the growling creature trapped deep inside him and fighting for dominance every single second of every day had spared the young man's life and even given him back what he had taken from him.

“You could have told him what had happened instead of showing him. There was still the chance left that he would believe you after all. There was no need to torture him and make him suffer like this.” Her voice was still calm and without any judgment, but he stiffened under her intensive gaze even though he couldn't see her face.

“Yes, I had to. You know that. He wouldn't have believed me if I hadn't shown him what his ancestors did to my people.”

There was a long silence, and he was grateful that Mathilda didn't comment on his halfhearted attempt to justify his actions.

“The others didn't believe it even though you showed them what you showed Marco. They refused to believe that the memories of your sleeping brothers and sisters they saw were true.”

The Dark King lowered his gaze down, staring at the blinking lights on the console without really seeing them. “Yes, I know. I thought that it would be the same with him. I couldn't know that the memories would draw him in the way they actually did. It had never happened before with one of the others. I really thought that he would just be a watcher like all of the others had been.”

“But Marco isn't like the others have been at all. He is different. He still has a heart and a soul – and he could have lost both of them because of what you did to him as I want to remind you of. And it was different this time, wasn't it, Dark King?” Mathilda demanded, and he flinched, because she had never called him by this name, the name his lethal enemies had given him. He had considered them to be gods, but they had everything taken away from him, even his name, giving him a new one when they had realized what kind of creature he had become, stronger and more powerful than they would ever be, uncontrollable and driven by the all-consuming desire to destroy them and make them pay for what they had done to him.

They had named him the Dark King, a name that made every human hearing it shiver with fear and hate.

He hated this name, and Mathilda had never called him Dark King before this moment, never given him the feeling that he was the monster someone with this name could only be.

The monster he actually was.

Mathilda continued relentlessly when he didn't speak, unable to face her and see the disappointment in her eyes.

“This time, it was different because you didn't show him the memories of your sleeping brethren, wasn't it, Dark King? This time, you showed him your own memories.  
You've let Marco in your head, and you've made him see and hear what you can't forget, no matter how many centuries will pass. You've made him watch your own nightmarish memories, but you hadn't expected him to actually relive them, because you hadn't wanted to see that Marco is different from all the other prisoners - that his soul was still pure and innocent when you captured him although he was a fighter pilot and had sworn the oath to defeat you. He hadn't sworn this oath because he hated you and wanted to kill you, but just because he wanted to protect the ones he loved, his family and friends you had sworn to extinguish. Marco had sworn his oath out of love while you had sworn yours out of hate.  
You'd thought that he would laugh at you and deny the truth like the others had done, but instead of behaving like you'd expected him to behave he felt what you had felt, and he screamed like you had screamed, right?”

He swallowed, the hot wave of self-loathing burning like acid in his throat, and the memory of Marco's desperate screams and his with fear and pain shaking body was worse and haunted him more than his own memories had ever haunted him.

“Yes, I've shown him my own memories.”

“You had to link your mind with his to be able to do so. Did he realize what you had done?”

“No, I don't think so. Marco didn't know that he was in my head and that he relived what I had experienced. For him, it was he being tortured and he being turned into the hybrid-monster I actually am. But he fought much more against the panthera than I did when he overtook me.”

There was admiration audible in the Dark King's voice, admiration and shame about his own inability to fight against the black creature the way Marco had fought against it when he had been trapped in his head and those horrible memories of the Dark King's past.

“The panthera is a part of you, but he doesn't control you – not if you don't let him control you.” Mathilda had come closer without him noticing it, and he flinched when he felt her hand on his stiff back.

“I don't have the power to fight against him any longer, Mathilda. His hunger is burning me alive.”

“Then you should perhaps just stop fighting against him. You have fought against him for longer than any human being can only imagine – when you were awake as much as you fought him when you slept. You tried to keep him down and push him back into the farthest corner of your shared body and mind except for the few times when you allowed him to feed in order to save both of your lives. But the panthera will always be a part of you for the rest of your life, you can't live without him any longer. Accept him as a real and important part of you and try to find a way to live with him instead of trying to defeat him. You two share this body, listen to him instead of blocking him out.”

The Dark King who had once been a young man with a real name turned around to look at her. “He's a merciless predator, Mathilda, the panthera is not able to feel love or sympathy for those he feeds on. All he knows is hunger and hate, the will to conquer, defeat and kill. He turned me into a cruel and heartless monster, his dark voice whispering horrible things into my ears whenever I try to forget.”

Mathilda raised one of her eyebrows. “Is that so, Dark King? Why is Marco still alive then? Why did the panthera not finish him off when he had the chance to do that without you being able to stop him? Why am I still alive then?”

The Dark King flinched, biting down on his lip until he could feel blood.

Mathilda's gaze softened, and she wrapped her arms around him, allowing him to rest his tired head on her shoulder.

“The panthera might once have been a heartless monster,” she said quietly, carding her fingers through his hair and pulling him close, “but you are not the monster you think yourself to be. You still have a heart and a soul, you only need to remember that! Remember who you've once been – a young man with a kind heart full of love.  
Yes, the black predator living in your body and your mind has changed you, but you have changed him as well. Stop fighting against him, and I am sure that he will stop fighting against you. Combine his power with your ability to feel love and sympathy. Show him what joy is, what love can do. You can be something really great together, and I am sure that Marco is the right one to teach your panthera what love is. This remarkable young man has already started to change you – both of you – you only need to trust him and open up to him. Marco is still alive, the panthera didn't drain him like he did it with Marco's predecessors, and I am convinced that he didn't kill him because of the strong connection between Marco and you.”

The Dark King let her warmth seep through his heavy clothing, her gentle voice balm for his aching mind and his wounded soul.

“Do you really think so, Mathilda? Do you really believe that the panthera will let me do that? I'm so weak, and he is so strong...”

“You are stronger than you think that you are, my friend. You only have to believe in yourself. This is the chance you've waited for such an incredible long time, don't throw it away.”

The Dark King sighed, but he lifted his head from Mathilda's shoulder and looked at her. “I don't know if I still know how to do that – believe in myself, I mean.”

Mathilda smiled, and she rose onto her toes again to kiss the Dark King on his cold cheek. “But I know how to do that, and I will do that for both of us until you've learned how to do it again. I believe in you, and I always will – Robert.”

 

***

 

Marco couldn't tell how much time had passed when he woke up in his room again. He lay in his bed curled up into a small ball, and someone must have removed his stained clothes and covered him with the blanket, because he was completely naked, the covers protecting him from the cool air of the gloomy chamber.

The thought of the Dark King having done it and seen him naked disturbed him less than it should actually do, and it disturbed him much less than the thought that one of the androids might have undressed and seen him like this.

The blond fighter pilot lay completely still for a moment as he tried to focus his mind on what had happened after the movie the Dark King had shown him had ended. It had actually been so much more than only watching a movie, Marco had felt what the tortured people had felt – just as if it was him who had been tormented and abused in the cruelest ways possible again and again.

Marco wasn't even sure that the things he had to endure had been the memories of different people, and he remembered vaguely a beautiful young man with thick black hair who somehow reminded him of the Dark King. The most disturbing experience had surely been that he had been able to feel the pain of the merciless black predators his own race had used for their experiments as well, the burning hunger and the pain and despair when they had been beaten and chained to sacrifice their blood and their DNA for these experiments.

The young fighter pilot had always believed that the pantheras hunting in the thick jungles of countless planets - living for centuries because of their way of feeding - were just animals, neither sentient, nor intelligent, but he now knew that he had been wrong about that. They were as intelligent as humans were, communicating telepathically with each other over great distances, and they were much more sentient and sensitive than Marco's race had given them credit for. They hunted other living beings because they would die of starvation if they didn't, but they normally didn't take more than they needed to survive. Marco couldn't tell whether or not the Dark King was aware of the true nature of the predator living inside him – whether they were actually two beings sharing one body or one being with two different personalities, a human personality and the one of the black panthera.

The Dark King must have kept his promise that he would erase the memories burnt in Marco's mind though, they were still there, but as distant as if they were hidden behind a thick curtain or wall, and Marco couldn't really recall what he had seen and heard except for a few images that flashed briefly before his mind's eye, no matter how hard he tried. There was only the vague feeling of horror still lurking somewhere deep inside his aching brain, and he knew that the things he couldn't remember had truly happened and that his own race was responsible for all of them. Marco was torn between gratitude and anger that his captor had made him watch those horrible things just to take them away from him again, and the memory of his freezing cold kiss was still vivid in his memory.

Marco had really thought that the panthera would kill him, suck him dry until there was nothing left of him, but he hadn't fought against him, not after realizing that the black creature was just a tortured prisoner like Marco himself was. The Dark King had starved him, allowing him to feed only when he had been about to die, and he had fought against the hungry beast inside his body like Marco had fought against his armada of android-robots.

The panthera had looked at him with hate and fury, but when Marco had just let him suck his energy out of him without fighting against it, showing him his sympathy and understanding for what he had to do in order to survive, the panthera had suddenly reversed the process and literally shoved his fading life back into him in one great explosion.

The powerful rush of energy had been too much for Marco to take it at once, and he had obviously lost consciousness when the Dark King had given him back what he had taken. The blond pilot had felt him in his head while they had kissed each other, and he must have manipulated his memory to keep his promise and end the endless loop of horrible pictures and screams repeating themselves his his mind all over again and again.

Marco almost wished that the pictures were still there to remind him of what his own people had done when he got up from the bed to dress with the fresh clothes hanging over one of the two chairs, and he let his fingers glide over his face lost in his thoughts. The crinkles and lines the panthera's first kiss had carved into his face were gone, his skin smooth and unlined again. He felt powerful, fresh and recovered even though he hadn't eaten much within the last days, and a cold shiver ran down on his spine when he realized what his newly regained strength must mean for the panthera – who had already been almost starved to death before he had given Marco his life back and probably even some of his own energy.

The young fighter pilot swallowed hard, his throat clenching with the fear for his captor's well-being although this was pretty stupid, but he couldn't help his worries. He hadn't become a fighter pilot because he had wanted to kill the Dark King, but because he had wanted to protect his family and his friends, and the thought of the fascinating alien male dying because of him made him feel sad and desperate. Marco sighed deeply as he dressed with the underwear and the fresh yellow-golden shirt before pulling the tight black leather trousers over his long legs, and he had just finished when the door opened and a small woman with chin-long brown hair and ageless features emerged on the threshold, smiling cheerfully at him with soft and kind eyes.

“Marco, I'm pleased to see you awake and recovered! I am Mathilda, and I've come to make sure that you will eat your breakfast this time.”


	5. Learned

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marco has met Mathilda for the first time at the end of the last chapter. Now, it's time for him to learn how she met the Dark King...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My dearest mariothellama,  
> your comments and your love for this story make me so incredibly happy, and I decided to finish this story before going back to my other works.  
> This chapter is rather painful and dark again, I hope you will approve of the story I have created for Mathilda and the Dark King. The Dark King doesn't show up in this chapter, only in Mathilda's story, but he will come back in the next one, and the remaining three chapters will hopefully be sweeter than the first ones.
> 
> Trigger warning:  
> this chapter contains non-too-graphical descriptions of war, battles, death and torture.

Marco stared at the small woman a little bit dumbfounded, watching her pulling the chair for him and pointing strictly at the tray with the food set upon the table.

“Uhm, nice to meet you, Mathilda,” the young fighter pilot finally stammered, not daring to object to her when she looked meaningfully at him. He slumped down on the chair, and she smiled contentedly and sat down opposite to him – where the Dark King had sat during his first visit.

Marco really hadn't expected to meet another living human in the facility where the Dark King kept his prisoners and most likely also did his own experiments and cloned his androids, at least not another human who was apparently allowed to move around without chains or guards – and surely not that this human would be a small and slim woman that looked so fragile as Mathilda did.

Mathilda must be human to hundred percent because Marco couldn't feel the presence of a panthera inside her, and she radiated warmth instead of the freezing cold he knew from his fascinating captor.

The small woman didn't seem to mind his close observation, she just smiled at him as she loaded his plate with sweetly smelling fruits and some kind of vegetables he had never seen before, putting the plate onto the table right in front of him with a firm and determined gesture. “These vegetables are very nourishing, and I expect you to eat all of them, Marco!” she said, leaving no doubts that he wouldn't like the consequences if he didn't obey her strict order.

Marco sighed and averted his eyes from her face to gaze down at his plate and regard the healthy vegetables with a rather mistrustful expression on his handsome features. They looked like a mixture of beans and potatoes, swimming in a thick sauce, and they were crispy and tasted delicious when Marco tried them, taking the spoon filled with the vegetables Mathilda offered him silently.

“This plate will be empty when I have to leave you again, Marco,” Mathilda informed him, leaning back in her chair and regarding him thoughtfully and attentively, her eyes scanning his face as though she was searching for something she had expected to see but couldn't find, but she seemed to be relieved and pleased about what she could see.

His stomach grumbled loudly in approval of the food, and Marco realized astonished how hungry he actually was. He dipped a slice of fresh dark bread into the sauce and filled his spoon with the potato-beans, but couldn't bring himself to swallow the bite down when he remembered his worries about the Dark King. Marco really needed to know how he was doing, whether he was still alive or already close to death after having reversed the feeding.

“Have you seen him, Mathilda? How is he?” Marco bit down on his lip as he gazed pleadingly at her. “Please, I must know how bad it is after what he has done to save me without thinking about his own weak state.”

The small woman lifted one of her eyebrows in question. “You're worried about his well-being after what he made you watch and endure, Marco? I must admit that I am surprised now.”

Marco scowled at her. “You think that I want to see him suffer just because he let me suffer beforehand? He had good reasons to do that, hadn't he? I know what my race – our race? - has done to him and his beloved ones. I at least think that you are human and have been born on Earth as well, Mathilda. Some of my... our ancestors have been cruel monsters, torturing him and his family in a way I can't even begin to understand. I don't remember much of what he has shown me because he has taken the memories away from me again, hiding them behind some kind of wall or so, but they are still somewhere inside my head. What I do remember is that the things he has shown me were horrible things no living being should have to endure – and I know for sure that my race is responsible for all of these things.

But that doesn't mean that all humans are cruel and heartless monsters. My family and my friends have never enjoyed it when they saw other living beings suffer, and they have always tried to help them – whether they were animals or people – and I could never be happy about him suffering because of me, Mathilda! So tell me about him, please, because I really need to know that he is still alive and not in too much pain!” the young man growled, and several emotions flickered over Mathilda's face after his passionate speech.

“So I wasn't mistaken about you, Marco,” she stated quietly, jerking her head at his plate. “He is alive and as well as one can be given the circumstances, so don't worry too much about him, please,” she then said rather ambiguously, “eat your breakfast and I will tell you how I met him, Marco. It is not upon me to tell you more about him than the things that concern me as well, but I can see that you're wondering about my presence here, and I am willing to share my story with you. I hope that it will help you to understand him better and make you stop hating him in the end.”

Marco hesitated but picked up the spoon again, sensing that she wouldn't answer his questions about the alien male with the two different personalities. “I don't hate him, I just want to understand and learn why he made me suffer through these memories just to take them away again right after he had shown them to me. Alright, tell me your story then, Mathilda.”

The small woman observed him for a few more seconds before she exhaled a resigned sigh and nodded her head. “He made you forget what he had shown you because you begged him to do that, young man. He couldn't stand seeing you in so much fear and pain,” Mathilda said with a frown, and Marco frowned as well, because he hadn't expected the Dark King to feel pity with him and have a bad conscience for what he had done. He didn't really remember that he had begged the Dark King to show mercy, everything that had happened before the fierce kiss was blurred and too far away, but he believed Mathilda when she said that he had asked him to remove those terrible memories again.

Mathilda pursed her lips when Marco didn't answer, only looked expectantly at her.

“Very well, hear my story then, fighter pilot Marco Reus.  
Several long years ago – it isn't of any importance how long ago that was – Earth decided to send out a large spaceship with some of their best scientists on board of it. The Dark King had won several battles, and the government feared that he would attack Earth any time soon and destroy their most important facilities where these scientists were working on a solution to defeat him for good. The scientists were allowed to take their families with them as they would be brought to a secret planet and never return to Earth again.

The spaceship was attacked by the armada of the Dark King and seriously damaged when it intruded on his territories to reach this secret planet at the other side of the galaxy, and all of the grown-up passengers died because of a huge explosion in the prow of the ship. Some of the scientists had children, and at the beginning of the attack the children had been brought to one of the hangars at the stern of the spaceship. The children survived while their parents and the entire crew died, but the ship was about to explode and they couldn't escape, so they huddled all together and waited for their own death.”

Mathilda went silent, staring unseeing at the table in front of her. Marco had already figured out that she must have been among those children, and he felt a lump in his throat and instinctively reached over the table but didn't dare to take her hand.

“You were one of them, weren't you?” he asked hoarsely, and Mathilda nodded. “Yes, I was one of them. The youngest one to be precise, only six years old. The other fifteen children were all older than me, mostly teenagers, two of them even twenty.”

“What happened?” Marco wasn't hungry any longer, but he knew that he had to eat in order to keep his strength, taking one of the juicy fruits to nibble at it, glad that his hands had something to do that kept them from shaking too hard.

“One of the crew-members must have sent a message to the ships of the Dark King before the explosion, telling his soldiers that there were children on board in the hope that he would show mercy and spare them. It had been a warship, no one would have guessed that it had children on board of course.

There was a fire that had almost reached the hangar where we were trapped in, we could see the flames shining through the slit between the metal gates. There was no escape, the fire blazing at the first one of the two only exits of the hangar, and outer space denying us a possible getaway at the other exit of it. We had just resigned ourselves to our fate of being burnt when the gates protecting us from the vacuum suddenly opened, revealing another spaceship that had docked to ours. The android-robots you've already met entered the hangar, and we thought that they had come to kill us.

But they simply picked us up and carried us to their own spaceship, and the Dark King was among them. He had come personally to save the children of his lethal enemies, and he was the one taking me in his arms and carrying me to his ship even though the flames had almost reached us by the time he had come. Maybe he did it because I was the smallest one, crying for my parents, I don't know.”

Marco felt tears well up in his eyes. He hadn't cried in a rather long time, not even when some of his comrades had been shot in the battle, too occupied with staying alive to be able to give in to his deep grief about their losses, but Mathilda's heartbreaking story made him want to cry, and the thick lump of unshed tears in his throat was choking him.

“What did he do with you and the others?” he asked when he trusted his voice again, and the slim woman with the brown hair and the soft eyes smiled at him.

“He brought us to his ship. It was a rather small ship and the other children had to crouch on the floor behind the cockpit because his ship had been hit by a shot during the battle and only the area behind the cockpit had enough air left for us in order not to suffocate before we reached another ship or planet. He flew the ship himself, and he let me sit in his lap while he tried to get away from our warship just in time before it would explode. We barely managed to escape, and he stroked my back and sang songs to me the entire time, pressing my face against his shoulder so I wouldn't have to watch the ship explode behind us.

He flew his damaged spaceship to the nearest colony Earth had built on one of the planets bordering his own territories, and he risked his own life again when he landed on the planet a few kilometers away from the colony because his transporter-beam didn't work properly due to the damage the hit had caused on his ship. My parents had always told me that the Dark King ate small children to sate his insatiable hunger, but he was friendly and he consoled us with his warm voice and soothing words, and he waited until he was sure that the other kids were safe in the colony before he fled. We almost got shot again, I still don't know how he managed to bring us back into space with me crying in his lap before the fighters reached us.”

Marco pushed his plate aside and wiped his eyes to keep his tears from falling. “Why did he keep you? Did he want to have a hostage?”

Mathilda slowly shook her head. “He didn't keep me, Marco, I refused to leave him. He begged me to go with the others, telling me that I wasn't safe with him and that the monster inside him would feed on me eventually. He tried to remove me from his lap, but I clung to him and cried even harder when he did that. He repeated again and again that he was a monster and that I should go with the other kids, but I didn't see a monster. I only saw a young man who had saved me and almost lost his own life to be able to do so. I wrapped my arms around his neck and cried, and in the end he gave up his tries to make me leave him.”

“I see.” Marco had to clear his throat several times. “So you stayed with him.”

Mathilda nodded. “Yes, I did. We haven't been apart for more than a few days ever since that day, and only when circumstances demanded it. He never left me alone as long as I was still a small child though. He put me to bed personally every single evening, and he sang to me every time he did so until I was asleep.”

Marco clenched his fingers in his lap because they were trembling so hard. “And now?”

She smiled again. “Now it's me putting him to bed and singing for him when he can't find sleep, Marco.”

There was a long silence. “Has he ever fed on you?”

Mathilda pressed her lips to a thin line. “No. Never. I offered it to him, but he never touched me, even not when he was almost starved to death. It is painful to see him suffer like this.”

Marco swallowed audibly. “Yes, I know.” He raised his head to look at her. “Why didn't you want to leave him, Mathilda? He had killed your parents.”

Mathilda cocked her head to the side. “This is what war does to people, Marco, killing other people and sometimes even those we love the most. I was too young to understand everything. I didn't know back then that it had been his ship that had shot ours. For months, he had only been the one coming to my rescue, the one who had carried me out of the burning hell the hangar had become. The one who had risked his life in order to save the life of all of us.

And no, he didn't lie to me, Marco. He was the one telling me what he had done. He looked me straight into my eyes and told me that his ship had destroyed ours, that he had been the one killing my parents. I was furious of course, I yelled at him and beat him with my small fists, and he let me beat him until I broke down in his arms and cried. I've never seen him crying, but in this night, he cried together with me. I was deeply hurt and angry, but I never hated him, Marco.”

Marco hadn't realized that he had started to cry until Mathilda reached out to wipe a single tear from his cheek. “Thank you for telling me your story,” he whispered hoarsely, wishing he had known her story before the Dark King had shown him those terrible things. He still couldn't remember the memories he had lived through in some way, but there were a few pictures flashing before his eyes, and he could still hear the echoes of the desperate screams in his mind.

“Are there other humans like you?” he wanted to know to distract himself from the screams and the pictures.

“There have been other prisoners before you, young soldiers and pilots who tried to kill him or get into this facility, but no other children or civilians. He has rescued some more, but he has always brought them to some of the colonies that belong to Earth. He only kept the soldiers as prisoners.”

Mathilda didn't say what the Dark King had done to them, and Marco didn't ask because he could imagine what had happened to them.

“Has he ever shown you what he showed me?” Marco felt for the glass with the water because his throat hurt from all of this.

“No, he never showed me what his own race had to live through because of ours. He didn't need to show me these memories, Marco. I believed him when he told me what our ancestors had done to his people.”

The blond fighter pilot chewed on his lip. “Not only to his people. To the pantheras as well,” he mumbled, frowning when he suddenly remembered something. The pictures in his mind were still hidden behind this strange thick curtain, but there was a name. Someone had screamed the name _'Robert'_ again and again, and Marco wanted to know who this Robert was.

“In the memories he showed me, there was a name. Someone cried Robert in mortal fear. Have you ever heard about this Robert? Do you know who he was? He must have been someone important, I guess, maybe their ruler or so? I think I could feel his pain, it was horrible, and I didn't know if I was this Robert or someone he had attacked in his hunger. His fate must have been a terrible one, and I feel so sorry for him. I can only hope that he has found his peace in the end.”

Mathilda just gazed at him for a very long time, and Marco forgot how to breathe when realization finally dawned on him.

“You know who Robert is, Marco Reus. You have already met him, and being sorry for him is not what he needs and wants from you, believe me.  
Robert is the one they tortured the most. He was their last victim, the one they took at last to finish their cruel experiments. They wanted to have super-warriors, invincible soldiers that would fight against their enemies without any fear, and with Robert, they were finally successful.

Robert was the first one who didn't lose his sanity and his intelligence during the transformation, and he became even stronger and more powerful than they had imagined in their wildest dreams after they had infected him with the DNA of the panthera. Their new soldier was both, human and panthera at the same time, but he was not to control by them any longer - unlike all of the other, weaker and less intelligent versions of their super-warriors - who they had kept under control easily, but who weren't the skilled warriors they had hoped to create.

They infected him again and again, causing him unbearable pain until they had finally found the right dose of DNA, and the process of the transformation must have felt as if he was burnt and frozen alive at the same time. It is a true miracle that he kept his sanity in the end. During the process, his hunger was insatiable, like a living being on its own, and he attacked the ones he loved the most, unable to control the panthera inside him.  
Learning how to keep the predator at bay was a slow and painful process that went over several long years. When he realized what he had done to his own people, he turned against his human creators and swore to extinguish every single human who had been born on Earth. You know the rest of the story, Marco.”

Marco stared at her. “Yes, I do. He showed me his own memories, didn't he? The Dark King - he is Robert.”

“Yes, Marco. The Robert from your memory is the Dark King.”


	6. Remembered

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marco has heard Mahilda's story. Now he's anxiously waiting for the Dark King to come to him again...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My dearest mariothellama,  
> I'm so very happy that you like this story so much, and that you especially liked Mathilda's story. This story really has a hold on me, and I'll try to finish it over the weekend. This chapter is the longest of it so far, and it contains a lot of interaction between Marco and Robert. Our beautiful black predator finally gets to shine as well, I hope you will like the name I chose for him. I've always loved the panther Baghira from The Jungle Book, and I wanted something similar and yet unique for our panthera. I also 'messed' with the name of a certain small orange dragon and changed it a tiny bit to include it in this story.  
> I really, really hope that you will like your new chapter, this story is for sure one of the closest to my heart I've ever written and posted here. <33

Mathilda had left Marco a while ago again, sensing that he needed some time on his own to digest everything he had learned about her and the Dark King over the last couple of hours. His head was swimming with all the information he had gotten, and he felt too nervous and worked up to sit or lie down, pacing up and down in his quarters like a caged lion as he tried to join the dots.

Marco didn't know when he had started to consider the rather gloomy room Robert had chosen for him his quarters instead of thinking of them as a prison cell any longer, and he couldn't help but crave to see the one his thoughts circled around without being able to stop them.

The Dark King.

The most fascinating being Marco had ever met.

And now that he knew his real name, he couldn't bring himself to think of him as the Dark King any longer. For him, the young and unimportant fighter pilot he actually was compared to his beautiful captor, the Dark King had become Robert, and Robert was the name repeating itself in his mind all over again and again.

Marco couldn't deny the truth anymore. He had fallen in love with the dangerous male, fallen in love with someone who was half human and half panthera, and he loved the black creature inside the beautiful human body as much as he loved the simple human man Robert his captor or his savior - depending on how one looked at it - had once been.

The quiet sound of the door being opened by an unknown visitor made him whirl around his axis, and Marco almost ran to the dark figure standing in the doorway to grab his leather-covered shoulders and observe him in an anxious and hasty scrutiny, searching for any sign that Robert was severely sick or injured, his words tumbling from his lips.

“I'm so glad that you are here, Robert! I was so worried about you! You were so starved, so clearly in pain, why did you do that? How are you, you must be in great pain...” the young man went silent when the Dark King just stared at him in disbelief, trying to pull away from Marco's hard grip and step back.

Marcus' heart clenched with fear, and he grabbed his shoulders tighter. “What's wrong, why are you looking at me this way, Robert? Are you hurt? Is speaking too painful for you?”

The other one swallowed, cautiously reaching out to touch Marco's face and stroke it with something akin to rapt devotion. “Why do you call me Robert, Marco?” His normally warm and smooth voice was barely more than a croaked whisper, and Marco pulled him over the threshold without thinking, shutting the door with his foot and wrapping his arms tightly around him. He inhaled deeply Robert's unique scent, and he made an impatient sound when Robert didn't return the embrace as fast as he needed it.

“Because that is your name, Robert. Such a beautiful name, so much more beautiful than 'Dark King. For me, you will always be Robert from now on,” Marco murmured into his neck, refusing to raise his head from where it rested on Robert's shoulder, his nose nestled against his fragrant throat.

Robert finally closed his own arms around Marco's back, carefully and gently - just as though he feared that he would break the young fighter pilot if he embraced him too tightly.

“I'm still the Dark King, I'm still dangerous and a lethal threat to you,” the alien male breathed against his cheek, “I'm still the one you should fear and hate with all you have, Marco. The monster inside me is still hungry, still craving to taste your delicious life-energy.”

Marco shook his head, rubbing his chin and his cheek against Robert's neck like a tomcat that wanted to mark his territory or his beloved human. “He is not a monster, Robert. You of all people should know that. You're sharing your body with him for longer than I can imagine after all. Your panthera is a sensitive and intelligent being, and he's suffering as much as you are. He is hungry, and he needs to suck the energy of other living beings in order to survive, yes, but he is not a monster. He could have killed me, but he didn't. He gave back to me what he had taken and even some of his own energy. I thought that you had died because he did that, I was so worried about you, Robert! Why didn't you come to me sooner?” Marco raised his head from Robert's shoulder at last to look at him reproachfully.

“I didn't think that you would ever want to see me again after what I'd done to you,” Robert admitted, and Marco lost himself in those crystal-blue orbs gazing longingly at him. He frowned when he noticed something he hadn't seen in his haste to embrace and feel the other male.

“Your hair! It is so much darker all of a sudden! And you're not as pale as you have been, not so freezing cold anymore. What happened to you, Robert?” Marco lifted his hand to stroke the soft curls, and Robert pulled him close and kissed him on his temples. His skin and his lips were several degrees warmer than they had been the last time the Dark King had held him, and Marco sighed softly and laid his forehead against Robert's.

“I don't know what happened to be honest, Marco. I didn't even know that the feeding process could be reversed. He had never done that before. I thought that it would weaken us, kill us, but it did the opposite. He is still hungry, but much less starved than he had been before he fed on you and gave you everything back afterwards.”

Marco closed his eyes as he focused on the feelings their closeness aroused in him. “This is actually good news, isn't it?”

Robert shrugged helplessly. “I don't know. I can feel that he is still angry, actually really furious. He is still fighting against me to take over control, and he is angry with me that I don't let him do that, threatening me to harm you the next time I will lose control over him.”

Marco drew back to look at Robert. “He won't harm me, Robert. Let me talk to him. He deserves to finally be heard. I know that you can do that. It took me some time to figure out what you had done to let me see your memories – because it must have been yours, don't you even try to deny that – and I now know that you linked our minds to show me what my ancestors did to you and your people. Pantheras are hunters that look like animals, but they are very intelligent and very, very sensitive, more sensitive than most humans due to the way they live their long lives, and they communicate telepathically with each other. He is the reason why you can link your mind with others and manipulate their memories, it wasn't you doing that, it was him.”

Robert swallowed hard and lowered his head down. “I am so sorry, Marco. I was so full of hate and anger because of what I had had to endure for centuries, because of what others who are long gone had done to me. I didn't have any right to do that to you and take revenge on you for something you had nothing to do with.”

Marco sighed, cupping Robert's still cool but much warmer cheeks with his hands. “Don't be sorry, Robert. I am actually glad that you did that. It was a horrible experience, but I would never have come to really understand you without this experience.”

“Thank you for being able to forgive me so easily, Marco. I wished I had been able to forgive my tormentors much sooner.”

“But we would never have met then, Robert,” Marco whispered urgently, and Robert chuckled weakly and kissed him on his lips. It was only a brief kiss with closed lips, but it tasted sweet and warmed Marco from the inside.

“Don't fight against him any longer, Robert. You need him as much as he needs you. Let me talk to him.”

“I can't, Marco. He will take over control and feed on you. The chances that he will kill you this time are not as small as you want to believe that they are.”

“Let me try it, Robert. I have faith in you – in both of you. In you and in him.”

Robert was still hesitant to let the panthera come to the surface of his mind and take over control, and Marco took his hand to guide him to the bed. He climbed onto it to sit in the middle of it, pulling Robert with him. “Sit down beside me and let your panthera talk to me. He craves for attention, for understanding and kindness – for someone who doesn't look at him with disgust. Let me be the one doing that, Robert. He must be so terribly lonely without feeling his brethren in his head, don't deny him his right to feel the touch of another being in his mind.”

The other male looked pleadingly at him. “Don't make me do this, Marco. I couldn't stand losing you – not after I have finally found you. He is angry, he is hungry, and he is so strong. I don't think that I will be able to ever win back control over him if I do what you want me to do now. Learning how to control him was so painful and hard, I don't think that I can go through this again.”

“You won't need to win back control, Robert, he will give it back to you freely and willingly,” Marco said gently. He didn't know where he took the certainty from that the panthera would do that, he simply knew the truth deep in his heart.

“How can you be sure about that?” Robert demanded doubtfully, closing his eyes in pain. Marco's heart ached for him when he saw the one he had come to love more than his own life struggling. “Because the panthera doesn't enjoy your suffering. He doesn't want to take over control, Robert. He only wants to be heard, to be finally equal to you.”

The young fighter pilot crossed his legs and took Robert's hands, entangling their fingers in his lap. Robert sighed but finally mirrored his posture after a few seconds and with obvious reluctance. For a long moment, they simply looked at each other silently, their eyes locked, and Marco squeezed Robert's finger encouragingly. “Link our minds, Robert. Close your eyes and let him say what he needs to say.”

Robert swallowed but nodded, and he slowly closed his crystal-blue eyes as he focused on touching Marco's mind with his own. The blond watched him for a few more seconds before he allowed his own eyes to fall shut, his breathing calming down and his muscles relaxing to make it easier for Robert to establish the telepathic link between them.

There was a low warning growl that became louder and louder and then, the dangerous panthera was suddenly everywhere inside Marco's head.

 

***

 

Marco was standing on a small clearing somewhere deep in a thick jungle.

The young fighter pilot was vaguely aware that he was still sitting on the bed in his quarters, but the jungle felt much more real to him, and he could smell the various different smells of grass, rotting leaves, animals and plants. The sweet fragrance of flowers and other plants intermingled with the musky and surprisingly tempting scent of the predator that was sitting opposite him, watching him with glittering crystal-blue eyes. It was night, almost completely dark, only a few stars visible in the deep blue sky, the normally big round of the moon partly hidden behind thick dark-gray clouds, but Marco could see his counterpart clearly despite the blackness surrounding them.

The panthera was beautiful, larger than Marco had expected him to be, reaching almost to Marco's shoulders as he sat there on the meadow, and he was sleek and slender, his pitch-black fur shimmering in the pale light of the moon and the stars like precious silk. The hunter sat on his strong-muscled hind legs, baring his teeth to a threatening hiss, his long tail twitching nervously as it whipped through the still warm nightly air. His head reminded Marco of a giant cat, but the ears of the panthera were a little bit smaller than the ears of a cat, and his nose and his snout were a little bit longer than the nose of a normal cat. But the biggest difference between the panthera and their feline relatives were for sure the two small horns on top of his head, right in the middle between his ears.

The black predator hissed again, showing his sharp teeth that shimmered like ivory in the dark cavern of his halfway opened mouth.

 _'You're much more beautiful than I had imagined you to be after what I had heard about you, panthera. I have never seen one of your kind for real, only pictures in a book, but they didn't do you any justice.'_ Marco thought the first thing that came into his mind, waiting for the panthera's reaction.

The black predator narrowed his glittering blue eyes in anger. _'Charming me won't save you, human. You were foolish enough asking Robert to give up his control over me. I'm stronger than he is, and he won't be able to save you when I take what's mine and feed on you! Don't expect me to show mercy with you this time!'_

Marco took a cautious step closer, and the panthera hissed loudly, stepping back and crouching down a little bit, ready to jump and attack the fearless blond human in the very next second.

_'I'm not trying to charm you, I'm merely speaking the truth. And you don't have to take by force what I'm offering to you willingly.'_

This calm statement threw the dangerous creature off. _'Why would you let me feed on you without objection? You know that it will kill you.'_ the panthera's mind-voice was smooth and warm like Robert's, and it sounded astonished and uncertain about Marco's unexpected offer, this was audible even despite all of his angry growling.

_'Because you are starved and in pain. I can't stand seeing you suffer like this. It hurts me. And you don't need to kill me to feed. It doesn't have to be like that.'_

_'Don't try to fool me, human. You're only caring about the human Robert trapped in this body, not about me. Your race has never cared about me and my brethren. They only came to trap and kill us, making us pay and suffer for our way of feeding.'_

_'Yes, I know, my friend. And I am so sorry for that. They didn't want to see that you are amazing beings, powerful and strong and beautiful, intelligent and sensitive, not just dangerous and dumb animals. I can't change the past, but I can ask you to give me the chance to prove to you that not all humans are like those who came to torture your ancestors and your brethren.'_

Marco didn't flinch back when the panthera growled warningly, slowly creeping up on him in the same crouched posture. He simply sat down on the grass and reached out with his hand. _'Can I touch you, please?'_

The black predator stopped abruptly, jumping forward the next second and bridging the remaining distance between them. He came to a halt right in front of the blond fighter pilot, their faces only inches apart. _'You do know that you don't have the slightest chance to escape me, Marco, don't you?'_

The silvery-blue eyes sparkled with hate and fury, but also with fear and hope, and Marco gently touched the black head, carding with his fingers through the silky fur. _'I know. That's okay, I don't want to escape you. And you're wrong, I don't care about the human Robert only, I care about both of you. You are two beings in one body, and you can't be separated. The one can't be without the other, and I love both of you.'_

The panthera opened his mouth to another hiss but closed it again, and there was so much pain and loneliness showing in his eyes that Marco wrapped his arms around the strong neck of the giant black hunter, burying his face in the soft fur next to one of the twitching horns.

 _'You must have been so lonely, so incredibly lonely,'_ Marco whispered brokenly, his tears falling onto the fur, _'I know that your kind are solitary hunters, sharing your territories with no one else, but your brethren are linked with each other, never alone in their heads. I can't even begin to imagine how lonely you must have been for all of this long time, never feeling the comforting touch of your brothers in your head.'_

Shivers ran through the powerful body, Marco could feel the trembling under his face and where his arms embraced the panthera, and he stroked his back and tried to warm him with his own body. _'You live in the jungles of hot planets because you can't keep your body heat when you're not freshly fed, you must have been freezing all of the time,'_ He realized astonished. The cold radiating from Robert the whole time eventually made sense, the panthera needed a warm climate because his own body heat depended on his feeding, and Robert had starved him for decades.

 _'You know astonishing much about my kind, human,'_ the panthera finally said, the anger gone from his mind-voice completely. There was only resignation and exhaustion, but also the slightest hint of hope. _'I will still feed on you.'_

_'I know, and I will let you feed on me, freely and happily. What's your name, panthera?'_

The black predator stiffened in his arms. _'Why are you thinking that I have a name?'_

Marco shrugged his shoulders. _'I don't know, I just think that you must have one. I want to know your name – if you find me worthy enough to share it with me, that is.'_

_'You are not like any other human I've ever fed on, Marco Reus.'_

Marco chuckled, snuggling closer to the panthera when he felt him relax again. _'I'll take that as a compliment.'_

 _'It was probably meant as one. I do have a name. Our kind use names just like humans do.'_ The panthera actually sounded sheepish, and Marco drew back to look at him with an encouraging smile tugging at his lips. _'I'd be honored if you told me your name.'_

There was a short silence when the two so different beings gazed at each other, silvery-blue cat's eyes looking into soft and kind amber-golden human orbs and then, the panthera lifted one of his front paws to stroke the human's face with a feather-like touch.

_'I had almost forgotten my name. I have never used it, because I've never thought of myself as someone being allowed to have a real name except for monster perhaps – because I've actually never had the right to live in the first place. My tormentors only awoke me to create a super-warrior, and they killed my father in the process, taking so much of his blood that he died a slow and incredible painful death._

_He was the biggest and strongest one of my kind, their leader, but he wasn't a warrior because my brethren hunt to survive, not to kill for pleasure. My race has never been a race of warriors, we try to live in peace with all the other creatures of the jungle where we live, and a lot of them come willingly to us and let us take what we need to survive. Your race changed that, but I can see that you're not like all of the others, Marco. My father has never had the chance to tell me my name, but our names are in our genetic code, and our names are unique and will never be given to another panthera again. Our names die with us. My father's name was Fechtaro, which means 'Sundancer'.'_

_'Your father had a wonderful and honorable name, and I am sure that he died in the knowledge that he would have a strong and honorable son. Robert was wrong, wasn't he? It wasn't him starving you, at least not him alone, it was you starving yourself because you wanted to punish yourself for being the reason for your father's death – even though you were not responsible for that and couldn't have avoided it to happen.'_

The panthera lowered his head down. _'Yes, Marco.'_

Marco waited patiently, with his forehead resting against the head of the panthera because he needed the contact as much as the grieving creature needed it.

_'My name is Bhaquaro. It means 'Starhunter' in your language.'_

Marco pressed his lips against the soft fur between the panthera's closed eyes. _'Bhaquaro. Starhunter,'_ he whispered, tasting the name on his tongue. _'What a beautiful and perfectly fitting name you have, my friend.'_

The panthera made a small sound that reminded Marco pretty much of a human sob, and the dangerous and powerful creature lay down before Marco and pushed his head against his chest. The young man pulled him in his lap and wrapped his arms around him again, rocking him gently.

_'This jungle here – it is the jungle where your father lived before they came to take him, isn't it?'_

Bhaquaro sighed in his head. _'Yes, it is. None of my brothers have ever taken it, this jungle still belongs to him – to me now because I'm his descendant. I don't know on which planet it is, I've never had the chance to go there, but I can feel it calling out for me in my dreams.'_

_'We will find it, Bhaquaro. One day, you will hunt in your territory like it was meant to be right from the beginning. Robert and I won't rest until we've found your jungle, I promise you.'_

The dangerous predator purred like a small tomcat, snuggling closer into the human's comforting embrace.

_'I love you, Marco.'_

_'I love you too, Bhaquaro.'_

 

***

 

Robert felt as if waking up from a deep slumber when the panthera slowly withdrew into a corner of their shared body, allowing his human mate to rise to the surface again.

Robert had heard and seen everything Marco and the panthera had said and done, unable to make himself known or be an active part of the scene, but he remembered every single word that had been spoken.

Bhaquaro.

The dangerous predator inside him had a name, and he wasn't like Robert had thought him to be at all. The panthera didn't want to kill, he only wanted to be heard – just like Marco had thought he did.

 _'I am so sorry for having oppressed you for so long!'_ Robert cautiously sent out, and Bhaquaro growled soothingly somewhere inside his head.

_'Don't be, Robert. I always understood why you did what you did. It was hard for both of us. But Marco will help us to find a way to live together without fighting.'_

Robert smiled. _'Yes, he will. I love him. And I love you,'_ he added after a short pause.

 _'I know, Robert. And we both love him. Talk to him, Robert. There is something he wants from us.'_ Bhaquaro drew back again, and Robert opened his eyes just to find Marco smiling at him, love and happiness shining in his wonderful amber-golden eyes.

“Robert,” was all he whispered before their lips found each other in a tender kiss, and Robert pulled the young fighter pilot close and let his warmth and his love soothe him.

“You were so sure that Bhaquaro wouldn't harm you, so much surer than I was,” Robert blamed himself, and Marco stroked his cheek and cupped his face with his hands as he gazed intently at him. “It was easier for me, Robert, don't blame yourself. Your experiences made you fight against him, and it is no wonder that you did that.”

Marco paused, taking a deep breath. “I know that I asked you to take the memories away again, Mathilda told me that. But I want them back, Robert. I know that they are still haunting you – both of you – and I want to share your burden with you. Please give them back to me.”

Robert flinched, staring at Marco in horror. “No, I won't do that. You will never be able to forget them again if I do that.”

“I don't want to forget them again, Robert. Quite the opposite. How can I help you if I don't know what's torturing you so much? I'm strong, I can take it. I need to remember what you showed me, please. We all need to remember what happened in the past to learn from it and make a new start. This war must end. You deserve justice, and your people deserve it. Bhaquaro and his brethren deserve justice. Help me to remember why we need to fight for peace instead for war. Fight with other weapons than those that kill people. Please, Robert, help me to remember!”

Robert swallowed hard, but he realized that Marco was serious about it when he saw the look on his face. “It will be terrifying, Marco,” he said hoarsely but resigned, trying to warn him.

“I know. But it has to be. I need to remember everything.”

Robert inhaled and exhaled slowly, pulling Marco in his arms and closing his eyes.

“Fair enough. If that's what you want, Marco, then I will give you those memories back.”

 

***

 

It _was_ terrifying.

Robert didn't know from where Marco took the strength to relive the horrors he showed him for a second time, the blond's body shaking and convulsing in his arms when the memories floated his mind, but he didn't make any sound, enduring Robert's torture and transformation into the Dark King in complete silence.

His face pressed against Robert's throat was wet, and he clung to Robert's shoulders for dear life, clawing at his coat and almost tearing the thick black leather as he shook in the grip of the pictures and screams displaying in his mind.

Robert was only vaguely aware of their surroundings, and he heard himself groaning and gasping with the shock-waves coursing through his own body when he remembered the agonizing pain of his transformation during the experiments for the felt thousandth time. The first time he had shown Marco the memories, he had protected himself from most of the horror with the mind-shield he had formed between Marco's mind and his own, letting the pictures flow into Marco's brain without really being a part of it, but he couldn't do it this time.

Bhaquaro was howling in the back of his tortured brain, howling with the same pain Robert and Marco felt, sharing Robert's memories to the same extent as the blond fighter pilot did and adding his own memories to them on top of all of that.

Robert feared that it would never end, that he wouldn't be able to stop the endless loop, but Bhaquaro cut the powerful stream of pictures and noises just when Robert thought that he would lose control and drown in his own memories.

Marco slumped against him with a small sob when it was eventually over after what felt like more than only one life-time, and Robert thought that the younger one would fall unconscious or become sick again, holding him close and whispering unintelligible words of sorrow and regret into his ear.

But Marco just pressed him close, crying the tears for him Robert had never been able to cry about his own fate.

Strange as it was, but Robert felt peaceful and less haunted for the first time in centuries, the weight of his memories having lost its heaviness and pressure as he shared his burden with Marco and Bhaquaro now. The panthera purred softly somewhere in the back of his consciousness, having withdrawn again, but clearly wanting to soothe the distressed human he shared his existence with.

The man who looked not older than Marco but was several hundred years old waited patiently until Marco raised his head from his shoulder, and Robert was sure that he had never seen anything more beautiful than Marco's from his crying red and blotchy face, because his smile was simply breathtaking and of pure happiness.

“Thank you, Robert. Your pain shall never be forgotten again but always remembered. I will never leave your side again. I love you.”

“I love you, too, Marco. Thank you for sharing my pain with me. Our pain. Bhaquaro has suffered just as much.”

Marco nodded. “Yes, I know. I remember his pain now too. But I will spend the rest of my life with trying to make up for what my race has done to yours.”

“You don't need to make up for anything, Marco. Just love us, because this is the only thing that will matter to us from now on – your love.” Robert stroked his face with tender fingers, catching one of his tears that shimmered like a precious pearl to taste it on his tongue. It tasted salty and yet sweet, and Marco's eyes darkened with desire and love.

The blond fighter pilot who looked so young and fragile and was yet so strong, wise and brave, leaned in, closing his eyes and offering his lips to Robert.

“Kiss me, Robert, kiss me and let me feel Bhaquaro's kiss.”


	7. Kissed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marco, Robert and Bhaquaro have formed a strong bond, and Marco has asked Robert to kiss him and let Bhaquaro feed on him. Will the panthera really feed on him again? And will he be able to stop before it's too late?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My dearest mariothellama,
> 
> my day was incredibly busied, but I did my best to finish the seventh chapter and post it for you tonight. I hope that there aren't too many mistakes, I'm pretty tired and I proof-read it only briefly. There is one chapter left after this one, I'll do my best to write and post it tomorrow. I'm so happy that you liked the last chapter so much, I will answer to your wonderful comments tomorrow. I hope that you will like this chapter as well. <33
> 
> My dear readers,  
> thank you to all of you who have left kudos and comments on this story, it is very special to me and very close to my heart, and I was hesitant and not sure about posting it here on AO3, even though the idea for such a Leweus fic had poked me for one year. I will answer to your comments tomorrow, I'm too tired to do it tonight. I hope that you will like this chapter, there are finally happy times to come for our boys and their panthera. <33

Passion exploded between them when Robert touched Marco's lips with his own, forcing them apart driven by a hunger that came from the deepest parts of his soul.

The blond fighter pilot opened his mouth willingly for his two lovers, because it was not only Robert kissing Marco, but Bhaquaro rose back to the surface of their shared consciousness again as well, taking control over the passionate and almost violent kiss without trying to push Robert aside.

It was a strange experience for Robert, because the panthera hungry for human life-energy had always done that whenever he had fed on one of Robert's prisoners before, and he had also oppressed Robert's mind the two times he had kissed Marco to suck at his life-stream. Robert had always let him do it without objection, hoping that his the overwhelming feeling of guilt and shame would be less strong when he could tell himself that it hadn't been him feeding on another human but only the uncontrollable creature inside him.

This kiss was completely different from any other kiss Robert had ever experienced. Marco lay pliant and willing in Robert's arms, returning the kiss with the same desperate hunger Robert sensed coming off in forceful waves from the black hunter trapped in his body, deepening it and demanding entrance to the soft cavern of Robert's mouth even though he must know that he invited the dangerous creature to take his life with that. He realized that Marco had really been serious when he had said that he would gladly let Bhaquaro feed on him, and a hot wave of love and tenderness shot through him that this so special and amazing young man was brave enough to offer himself to them this way.

He could feel that Bhaquaro was as astonished about Marco's reaction as Robert himself was, no other human had ever asked for the kiss of the panthera before Marco had literally crashed into their lives.

“Bhaquaro, Robert, please...” Marco moaned urgently into his mouth, his tongue exploring the new territory, challenging the human and the panthera to respond to it and take what he was offering so sweetly and lovingly.

Robert pressed Marco down onto the mattress and covered him with his own heavier body, not because he feared that the younger one would try to draw back or even escape, but to protect him when Bhaquaro would start to feed on him. Marco pulled him even closer, all to happy to be trapped in the dangerous embrace that could easily become his last one. Robert felt his eyes wetting with tears of emotion when he opened them and saw the expression of uttermost trust on Marco's face. Marco's unquestioning faith in him and Bhaquaro was the most precious gift Robert had ever gotten, something he hadn't thought that he would ever be gifted with.

“Love you, darling, love you so, Marco, we love you so very much,” Robert heard himself murmur against his swollen lips, speaking for not only himself but also for the black creature that had been his most hated enemy for so many years, but which was actually such an important part of him. Without Bhaquaro, Robert wouldn't be whole, and he was utterly grateful that Marco had shown him that he didn't need to fear the panthera living inside his body and his soul any longer.

“Love you too, kiss me, take all of me!” Marco whispered, digging his nails into Robert's scalp to pull him closer and deepen their kiss again. The young fighter pilot felt so perfect in his arms, warm and eager, inviting them to explore the wonders awaiting Bhaquaro and Robert in his loving embrace.

The panthera growled inside Robert's head, but it wasn't an angry or threatening growl this time, but a growl filled with passion and love for the amazing being that loved both of them unquestioningly.

Robert drew back a little bit to give Bhaquaro more room, and the panthera pushed deep into Marco's mouth, licking, probing and caressing his way around in the warm and wet cavern until Robert's world shrank to the small spot where they lay on the bed and where their mouths were connected. A hot wave of pleasure shot through his aroused body when Bhaquaro started to suckle at Marco's so delicious life-energy, a soft and tender pull instead of the violent sucking he had drained the blond with during their first kiss.

Robert could feel Bhaquaro's gnawing hunger that came from decades and centuries of starvation, but the powerful creature held itself back, keeping the stream floating into their shared body small and steady instead of trying to suck their beautiful lover dry in one big and forceful pull. It was not the overwhelming experience Robert knew from previous feedings, but it was even more pleasurable this way, the tension deep inside his groin building slowly and deliciously, and he could sense Marco's pleasure and lust through the mental bond that was still strong between them.

The young fighter pilot shared Bhaquaro's and Robert's pleasure when the hunger and the pain of starvation finally faded to a distant memory, and Robert wasn't surprised that Marco was pressing hard and needy against his abdomen, bucking his hips up in the instinctive search for friction and release from his forceful desire. He was rock-hard in his leather pants himself, and for the first time in his life ever since his transformation Robert didn't feel ashamed and guilty about his reaction and his pleasure, but welcomed the sweet ache of his lust, savoring it and giving in to his desire.

It was sweeter and better than anything Robert remembered, and he succumbed to his lust, unable to stop Bhaquaro even when he could feel Marco getting weaker and weaker as his life slowly flowed out of him. He could feel that it was the same for the panthera inside him, the powerful rush of new energy and life blotting out all reason for a few dangerous seconds, and Robert could never tell later why Bhaquaro suddenly stopped his desperate sucking, reversing the process and the direction of the steady stream, pushing back into Marco's weak body what he had taken from him.

Maybe it was the trust Marco showed them, that he had still trusted Robert and his panthera that they wouldn't harm him even when he almost fainted from the loss of life in his body. Marco's trust didn't waver but enclosed Robert like a soft and warm bubble, and he didn't pull back from their deep kiss but surrendered to the powerful hunter, his only wish that the panthera he loved as much as he loved the human Robert wouldn't suffer any longer and sate his burning hunger.

Robert opened his eyes to watch the deep crinkles and lines the feeding had carved into Marco's beautiful face disappear again, smoothing out as the aging process was reversed, the pale yellow of Marco's hair turning back into the wonderful red-golden that had fascinated Robert right from the start.

Bhaquaro let the steady stream of life slowly stop when Marco had regained his strength and youth again, and Robert realized with surprise that the hunger was gone even though Bhaquaro had returned to Marco what he had taken from him. He didn't know how this was possible, but the fire blazing in every cell of their body had died out, and he felt sated and powerful like he hadn't felt since the early days of his transformation when he hadn't been able to control the black predator living inside him.

For the first time in decades, he didn't feel cold and like freezing any second anymore, but warm and happy, sated and aroused at the same time. Only that his hunger for Marco had nothing to do with sucking him dry now, but everything with wanting to kiss and caress him until Marco would scream his name in ecstasy and shiver with pleasure in his arms.

_'I love you, Marco, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to lose control like that,'_ Robert heard Bhaquaro whisper through the mental bond, and the warm rush of love and understanding Marco sent back made both of them feel humble and blessed.

_'I know, Bhaquaro. I knew that you wouldn't harm me. You won't lose control again because you will never have to fear starvation again as long as I live. I will always let you feed on me, it will be easier for you the next time. There is no need for either of you to punish yourselves this way any longer, and we will enjoy the next feeding very much, all the three of us, I know that for sure.'_

Marco smiled up at Robert, stroking his face with rapt devotion, tracing along the sensor slits in Robert's cheeks with tender fingertips. “You are so beautiful, Robert, as beautiful as Bhaquaro is in your own unique way. Your hair is black again, and your skin is warm and rosy now – just like it should be. You will never have to freeze again, I will always be there to warm you.”

“Thank you, love.” Robert bent down to kiss him again, and Bhaquaro chuckled in his head when he felt Robert's desire for the beautiful young man in his arms.

_'I will draw back so you can have some time on your own with Marco,'_ the dangerous creature told him, and Robert felt touched and grateful but didn't want his panthera to feel left out. _'Are you sure that you don't want to be a part of it?'_

_'Yes, Robert, I am sure. You deserve to be undisturbed and alone with Marco when you're together for the first time. It is important for you, and there will be other times when we'll share this kind of intimacy together. It's time for me to finally sleep for a while anyway. I'm sure that I will have some very pleasant dreams!'_ the fierce predator rumbled amusedly, and Robert's cheeks heated up with embarrassment. He sent a growl back to Bhaquaro, but the panthera had already withdrawn into the farthest corner of their mind, and his constant presence in Robert's head was just a vague sensation of sleepy happiness for once.

Robert looked down at Marco, his blue eyes much darker than usual, hooded with his forceful desire for the younger man.

“Bhaquaro has gone to sleep, he's sated and happy, and we're alone now, fighter pilot Marco Reus.” His voice was a low and throaty hiss, and Marco grinned up at him and pulled his head down for another deep and passionate kiss.

“Time to show me that you're as good at kissing as our beautiful panthera actually is then, Robert.”

 

***

 

Robert's kiss was totally different from the kiss of the panthera, but it was no less tempting and wonderful.

Robert's tongue seemed to be everywhere in his mouth, licking, teasing, stroking and caressing each and every place within its reach until Marco's head was spinning with desire and raw need. The young fighter pilot could sense clearly that the panthera had withdrawn and left Robert and him alone, and he was grateful for Bhaquaro's understanding and sensitivity. As much as he loved the beautiful black predator, but it was rather confusing having to deal with two so different beings in one body, and Marco had unconsciously longed to experience his first time with Robert alone.

Bhaquaro must have read his thoughts, and that he hadn't felt rejected but understood him meant the world to Marco. _'I love you Bhaquaro, thank you for granting me some time with Robert,'_ he sent through their mental link, not sure whether or not Bhaquaro had heard him, but the panthera surely felt his love and gratitude even in his sleep, and this was all that mattered to Marco.

Robert's kiss was ardent and full of tenderness, and both men moaned with passion and need as they started to fumble for the fastenings of their clothes, wriggling and shrugging out of them without breaking their deep tongue kiss. It was tricky to undress without wanting to loosen their tight embrace, and Marco heaved a relieved sigh when he could touch Robert's smooth and now wonderfully warm skin for the first time.

Soon, their clothes lay in a pile before the bed, the legs of their pants entangled on the floor like their limbs were entangled on the bed. Marco could have spent the rest of his life just lying there and holding Robert close, their bodies pressed tightly against each other, skin to skin and their lips and tongues still exploring one another with passion and tenderness.

His dark-haired lover stroked Marco's back with curious hands, exploring the delights of the lithe and youthful male body reverently and with greatest care.

“You're so beautiful, Marco, so warm and soft and so beautiful. I desire you so much, so very much.”

“You are beautiful, Robert.” Marco looked up at the older one with a tender smile. “When I woke up here in these quarters, after... my breakdown... I was naked... please tell me that you have been the one who undressed me – not one of your androids.”

Robert kissed Marco tenderly on his forehead. “I would never have let anybody else touch you, Marco. I carried you back to your room, and I undressed your stained clothes and covered you with the blankets. I wouldn't allow any other person to see you naked and vulnerable, darling.”

Marco relaxed underneath him. “Thank you, love. The thought of one of these robots touching me and undressing me was disturbing.”

“Never, Marco. This will never happen.” Robert sealed his promise with another passionate kiss, nibbling at Marco's tingling lips. The sensation shot right into Marco's groin, his strong arousal rubbing hard and demanding against Robert's hipbone. It felt so good to hold the amazing and wonderful man in his arms without any barrier, Robert's unique and tempting male scent filling his senses. Marco could smell the scent of the black panthera as well, Bhaquaro's musky fragrance a thin but still detectable part of Robert's natural perfume.

He stroked over Robert's sensor slits again, and his lover moaned for him, obviously liking to be touched and caressed there very much. Marco had seen the same slits on Bhaquaro's animal face, the panthera probably needed them for his hunts, and the slits on Robert's face were a result of his transformation into a human-panthera-hybrid. Marco guessed that most humans would find them weird and scary, but he loved Robert's face, and he stroked his cheeks and the slits with curious tenderness to show his beloved one that he accepted him the way he was and didn't feel deterred by his alien beauty.

“You like it when I'm doing that, don't you?” he whispered, and Robert closed his eyes in pure bliss and moaned loudly. “Yes, I like it. I'm very sensitive there, and I can almost taste you when you're doing that. You smell so good, Marco, you have no idea how good you smell to me!”

Marco chuckled, offering his lips to his ardent lover for another kiss. “You smell just as tempting and delicious to me, Robert, believe me!”

They kissed for a while, their hands stroking heated flesh and fragrant skin, until they knew their bodies by heart, and the fire of their desire for each other burnt higher and higher until Marco couldn't stand it any longer.

“I need you, Robert, I need to feel you inside me!”

Marco had never wanted anything as desperately as he wanted to become one with the man he loved, and Robert rewarded his confession with a possessive growl and another deep and ardent kiss. Marco focused on the way Robert's tongue danced around his own when the older one started to prepare him with his long and elegant fingers, exploring the dark-haired's mouth curiously and eagerly. It burnt at the beginning because Robert had to use their spit to make the intrusion easier, but Marco was relaxed and eager, craving to become one with Robert so much that nothing else mattered to him.

“Love you, want you, need you, Marco. I need you so much, you have no idea how much I need you! My life was nothing without you,” Robert whispered when he finally deemed Marco ready for their first time, pulling his fingers out of his secret core, leaving him empty and incomplete.

Bhaquaro's kiss had aroused him, the sweet ache of the feeding setting his body on fire with a desire only Robert could quench with his love, and Marco spread his legs for his lover without hesitation, looking up at him with trust and longing when Robert entered him slowly, gasping with the sensation of his hard member sliding into Marco inch by inch.

“Deeper, Robert, I need to feel you deeper!” Marco encouraged him, arching his back into his thrust to take him in to the hilt, the happiness and bliss about feeling him so close stronger than the slight pain of being stretched to his limits.

They lay still for a long moment when they were united, deeply connected not only with their bodies but also with their minds, and Marco was happy when he sensed the comforting presence of the sleeping panthera in the back of Robert's consciousness. Bhaquaro was not an active part of their first time making love to each other, but one day he would share this wonderful experience with them, and Marco was happy about this thought and knew for sure that he would always welcome his beloved hunter in their strong bond.

Finally, their desire for each other became too strong to ignore it any longer, and Robert bent down to kiss Marco as he started to move, thrusting deep into the soft cavern of Marco's mouth with his tongue as he did the same with his hard manhood, possessing Marco like he had never been possessed before.

It was a powerful experience, as powerful as the feeding had been, and Marco felt strong and alive, vibrating with desire and love as he met each of Robert's thrusts with unrestrained passion, his aching arousal rubbing wet and throbbing against Robert's strong-muscled abdomen. His amazing lover found his most sensitive spot with ease and just as if they had done this before, brushing over it with every push in and every pull out, and Robert's desire flowing through their mental bond added to his own until Marco feared that he would explode the very next second, their shared love and pleasure rising to incredible heights.

Nothing apart from their love and their longing for each other existed any longer, and Marco wrapped his arms and his legs tightly around Robert when the tension became too much to bear, kissing him with all he had and succumbing to the intense ecstasy that captured his body.

_'Robert, Robert, oh Robert... Bhaquaro!'_

His triumphant scream when his world exploded and the force of his climax swept him away echoed in Robert's head, and he could hear his answering shout in his mind when Robert followed him over the edge and filled him with his love and his ecstasy, spilling hot and wet into his pulsing channel.

_'Marco!!!'_

Marco had felt Bhaquaro's and Robert's pleasure and ecstasy when they had fed on him, and it had been the same ecstasy and pleasure that coursed through both of them now, filling every cell of their bodies with life and energy and new strength. Marco's loud moan was swallowed by Robert's warm lips, his lover drinking his sounds of pleasure from his mouth and feeding Marco with his own gasps and groans of ecstasy.

The blond fighter pilot thought that he would black out again, electric jolts shooting along his spine and making his vision go white with every new wave of sheer ecstasy that spurted from his exploding manhood, painting Robert's body with creamy stripes. It went on for what felt like forever, and he gasped for air when the older one drew back from his bruised and thoroughly kissed mouth, dabbing heated kisses on every part of his flushed and wet face instead.

Marco's body was humming and glowing with satisfaction, making purring sounds against Robert's throat when the older one relaxed above him, nuzzling his neck with his nose and shifting his weight until they lay on their sides nestled against each other, their bodies still connected like their minds were.

The younger one felt sleepy and wide-awake at the same time, his heart wanting to burst with all the happiness and love for Robert and his panthera.

“I love you so much, Robert. You and Bhaquaro. Please tell me that we'll never have to part again.”

Robert's smile was breathtaking, and he cupped Marco's face with warm hands, looking him deep in his eyes. “Never, Marco. We will never part again. We will find a way to end this war, and Bhaquaro and I will show you how much we love and adore you for the rest of our lives.”

Marco smiled back, and his voice was hoarse with love and happiness when he said: “Sounds like the perfect plan to me. How about sealing your promise with another kiss, Robert? Another proof of how good you are when it comes to kissing wouldn't hurt...”

“You're insatiable, seems like I woke up the hungry monster that has been sleeping deep inside you, the monster hungering for kisses,” Robert joked with glittering blue eyes, and Marco laughed and pulled his head down.

“You're so right, the monster inside me is hungry for kisses, and you are the only one who is able to sate its insatiable hunger, so please hurry and kiss me before it will be too late.”

Robert chuckled at his lips and then, the sounds of passionate kisses were the only sounds audible in the gloomy bedroom that had become their shelter for a very long time.


	8. Loved

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marco, Robert and Bhaquaro have bonded now and are true mates. What will the future bring for them and the galaxy? Will they find peace and happiness?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My dearest mariothellama,  
> I know that I have to answer to your wonderful comments, but I really wanted to post the last chapter for your as soon as possible. I'm sad that this story is over now, but I had so much fun writing it for you, and your lovely comments encouraged me to give Marco and his two special mates their happy end. This story has yet become different from the original idea again, but I could never write a story for you without happy end.  
> I hope that you will like this last chapter as much as the first ones, I might perhaps come back to this special universe one day. I also added a few people I know that you like to this story, they have only mentioned appearances, but still.  
> Thank you so much for your outstanding and ongoing support and your wonderful friendship for more than one and a half year now, you're making my life and my world so much richer and happier. <33

_20 years later, on a secret planet somewhere in the galaxy:_

 

The young man with the red-golden hair panted heavily as he searched his way through the thick dark jungle, turning his head now and then to see whether or not the dangerous predator had already come closer to him.

His heart was hammering in his chest from the exertion and the adrenaline that was coursing through his veins, and he ran faster when the small but unmistakable noises of breaking twigs and branches proved to him that his hunter had almost caught up with him.

He only needed to reach the other side of the clearing that lay somewhere in front of the overgrown path he was running along, still hidden by the large trees and bushes, but Marco had been here often enough to know that it was there, and he could already see the green grass of the meadow shimmering in the pale light of the moon when he took the next turn.

The hot breath of his hunter formed goosebumps on his neck, making the tiny hairs stand up on it, and Marco threw himself forward in the desperate attempt to escape the huge panthera hunting him down for hours by now.

He had just reached the edge of the clearing when a black shadow jumped him from behind with a loud triumphant growl, sweeping Marco off his feet with the impact of his heavy body.

The blond landed on the grass on his front with a loud “uff!”, rolling to the side in one swift move. The panthera growled annoyed when his prey tried to get back onto its feet again, pinning the young man down with his front paws pressed firmly against Marco's heaving chest.

Marco stared up at the black face with the twitching horns and the silvery-blue eyes glittering in a dangerous light, the silky pitch-black fur and the darkness of the night increasing the effect of the beast's glare even more and making Marco go completely still beneath his captor.

 _'I've won! I will take what's mine now, human!'_ the panthera growled in Marco's from his downfall spinning mind, lowering his head down, his hot breath ghosting over Marco's flushed face in some kind of dangerous caress.

Marco closed his eyes and opened his mouth in sweet defeat, awaiting the dangerous kiss of the king of the jungle with a mixture of fear and anticipation.

 

***

 

Bhaquaro's kisses hadn't lost their magic even though he had kissed Marco countless times within the last two decades, and every kiss felt like the first kiss Marco had gotten back then in his gloomy quarters in the Dark King's facility – like the first kiss they had shared after Marco's first 'real' encounter with the panthera that was a part of the human man Marco had fallen in love with.

Marco still remembered so vividly what had happened after his first night with Robert and Bhaquaro, sleeping sated and happy in the strong arms of the beautiful man with the dark hair and the deep blue eyes – who had been the feared and hated Dark King of an entire galaxy for hundreds of years.

_Mathilda had come to them hours later, waking Robert and Marco up to tell them that there was a rather small scout ship from Earth that had radioed the facility to ask for negotiations._

_Marco and Robert had awaited the ship together, standing at the edge of the dark landing field side by side and holding hands, and Marco hadn't been able to hold back his tears when he had seen his three closest friends exiting the scout ship._

_Lukasz, Mario and Erik had stalked over to where Marco stood with their heads held up high and without holding weapons in their hands, and Marco had embraced all the three of them and cried on their shoulders, unable to believe that his friends had risked their own lives just to save him, not fearing to face the Dark King and beg him for Marco's life on their knees if necessary._

_“We couldn't believe that you were dead, Marco. We would have gone through hell and back to save you, you must know that! All for one and one for all, that's what we've sworn when we were young boys, and it will always be all for one and one for all as long as we live and breathe. We knew deep in our hearts that you were still alive, and we would never have left you behind,” Lukasz had said, his eyes roaming over the face of his friend to search for injuries and any signs that the Dark King had tortured his friend._

_“I'm so glad that you came to search for me, Lukasz, Erik, Mario! But I won't leave Robert, my place is by his side now,” Marco had said, taking Robert's hand and pulling him close to his side. “The Dark King has gone, and I will stay with Robert and Bhaquaro and help them to find a solution for the feeding problem so no living being will ever have to fear the kiss of the panthera in the future.”_

_Lukasz had bowed before his friend, smiling at him. “If that's what you want to do, Marco, then we will support you. No more hate and no more war.” The older man had reached out to offer his hand to Robert, and Robert had taken it and welcomed Marco's friends on his planet._

Marco smiled when he remembered how deeply impressed Robert had been by the brave and fearless behavior of Marco's friends, and he had agreed to negotiations with the government of the Earth Federation, insisting on Marco, Lukasz, Mario and Erik being an active and important part of them. His armada of androids outnumbered the Earth fleet considerably, and the united planets of the Federation had been tired of the bloody war and craved for peace and freedom as much as Robert and Bhaquaro had craved for both for so long.

Lukasz had become the new president of the Federation after the five years the negotiations for a peace treaty had lasted, and Erik and Mario were his most important important ministers of the new government, responsible for the internal and the foreign affairs so there would never be a war again like the one they had just overcome.

Marco had kept his promise and stayed with Robert and Bhaquaro, and together with Mathilda they had found out why Bhaquaro could give Marco back what he had taken without starving himself in the process again. Marco was actually one of the few gene-carriers of a special gene that doubled the life-energy during the feeding. Robert had the same gene, and when the genes came together during the feeding, the life-energy was doubled and even quadruplet, providing both parties with new strength and stopping the aging process.

Pantheras had this gene by nature, and they fed their brethren with their own life-energy when they were injured or sick, but only few humans possessed it, and the panthera-gene was a little bit different from the human gene and couldn't be used for their research without its human counterpart.

Robert and Marco had needed ten years to find a therapy that worked reliable and without any risks for the humans who wanted to get this therapy to offer themselves for the feeding, and Mathilda, Lukasz, Erik and Mario had been the first ones who had gotten the therapy and offered themselves to their allied pantheras to let them feed on them without any risk for their lives.

Marco had insisted on the pantheras being a part of the negotiations when the former government had been reluctant to negotiate with 'animals', and Bhaquaro had accepted the request of his brethren to speak for all of them and become their strong leader like his father had once been their king. He had felt unworthy to accept this honor at first, but Robert and Marco had convinced him that he was more than worthy to fulfill Fechtaro's last wish and help bringing peace to the galaxy they lived in.

Fifteen years ago, right after finally signing the peace treaty, Robert and Marco had started to search for the planet where Bhaquaro's father had been the king of the jungle. Kubaro, the panthera that had become Fechtaro's successor after his death had given them the coordinates of the planet when Bhaquaro had agreed to negotiate for their kind. Marco was still touched when he thought about the first time they had met the impressive panthera. Kubaro was one of the few pantheras with a golden fur instead of the normal black color, and the beautiful and powerful predator had bent his head before the human who hosted his future king, becoming a part of him like Bhaquaro was a part of his human side.

The last twenty years had been the happiest years of Marco's long life, and no crease or line was visible in his still so youthful face, the feeding gifting him with youth and a long life.

 _'You're thinking too much, human!'_ Bhaquaro now complained in his head, breaking their kiss to scowl at him. _'I've won the hunt and I want to have my price now!'_

Marco chuckled, pulling Robert-Bhaquaro close again. _'You always win when we're playing this game and you're hunting me, love, so stop complaining. I'm as eager for your kiss as you are, believe me. You're the hunter, and you've hunted your prey down, so take what's yours and give me the kiss of the panthera.'_

 _'What were you thinking of so hard then, darling?'_ Bhaquaro lifted one of his front paws to tenderly stroke his cheek, and Marco could feel the touch of the two beings he loved the most in this universe, the touch of his beloved panthera and the touch of his beloved Robert.

_'Nothing important, love. I've only thought about how much I love you. There are no words in this world to express how loved and cherished you are, Robert, and you, Bhaquaro, as well of course.'_

The face of the dangerous predator softened with the love he felt for his human mate. _'You are loved just as much, Marco. Our love for you will never end, not even death will ever tear us apart.'_

Bhaquaro-Robert bent down and kissed Marco again, and Marco opened his mouth and let him in, the sweet ache when the panthera started to feed on his precious life-energy filling every cell of his body and making him hungry for more. It didn't take long until they could caress each other without being hindered by the offending garment of their clothes, lying naked in the soft grass of the clearing under the moonlight, the other inhabitants of the thick jungle respecting their king and his mates and granting them their privacy, protecting the clearing from any possible intruder while the panthera renewed his bond with his beloved ones.

It was both of them kissing and caressing Marco now, he could feel the beloved presence of his two mates in his head, their love and passion carrying him away to a land where only love and happiness existed.

It was Robert who entered him slowly with his gorgeous and rock-hard manhood but it was Bhaquaro who kissed him deep and passionately, exploring Marco's mouth with care and tenderness, the steady stream of delicious energy flowing back and forth between them and boosting their pleasure to incredible heights. It was Robert's hands caressing Marco's with desire burning body, but it was Bhaquaro's silvery-blue eyes looking down at him, shining with love and ardor, and it was his warmth that enclosed Marco and protected him from the cool nightly breeze, the warmth of a freshly fed and powerful panthera peerless and so precious.

It was Robert possessing Marco's pliant body in this moment, but it was both of them holding the key to Marco's heart, both of them possessing Marco's love, and Marco surrendered to both of his beloved mates, to the human man Robert and to the black panthera, who had both been so lonely for centuries; and who had learned to love and trust again after this incredible long time because Marco had shown them how to do it.

Marco's love had healed the deep wounds carved into their souls and their bodies, letting them fade to thin scars that would never go away completely, but these scars didn't hurt any longer, only itched now and then. The memories of what Robert had shown Marco in this special night didn't haunt them every single night any longer, only now and then, and every time Robert woke up from a bad dream, Marco was there to hold and kiss him, holding him tight and keeping him warm until the dream faded to a distant memory as well.

 _'I love you!'_ Marco sent through their deep mental bond when he reached the height of ecstasy in the arms of his mates, arching his back and pulling the warm body moving above his own closer.

 _'We love you too, Marco, you're so loved!'_ Robert and Bhaquaro let their love and passion for their beautiful fighter pilot flow freely through their link, sharing his intense pleasure as they came together with him, filling him with Robert's seed and Bhaquaro's precious life-energy at the same time.

The moon was shining down on them when they lay there cuddled up together, enjoying the soft waves of the afterglow of their passion and desire.

It had always been like this during the last twenty years, and Marco knew that I would always be like this in the future as well, a bright and wonderful future that lay before them.

It was a future that would be filled with love and hope, and Marco smiled and pulled Robert's head down to search for his lips again.

“Kiss me, my beautiful hunter, let me feel the kiss of the panthera. You have once been the Dark King, and your kiss was the kiss of agony and death, but now your kiss is the kiss of love and life, and I can't get enough of your kisses and crave for them every single waking hour and even in my sleep.”

And Robert, who had been the merciless Dark King for hundreds of years, feared and loathed in the entire galaxy, bent down to kiss Marco, and he kissed him until they ran out of breath and fell asleep in each other's arms, two beautiful human men and their beloved panthera cuddled up together in an inseparable unit and dreaming of love and hot passionate kisses.

The Dark King was gone, his armada defeated by the love of one single brave fighter pilot, and Marco smiled in his sleep, the memory of the dangerous kiss of the panthera following him in his pleasant dreams.

 _'I love you so much, Robert, You're so loved, Bhaquaro!'_ was his last coherent thought, and the soft whisper in his head was the last thing he felt before the velvet darkness of a deep slumber claimed him.

_'Sleep tight, Marco. We love you too, more than anything in this world.'_

And the moon was shining onto them, bathing their entangled bodies in its soft silvery light for the entire night until the golden sun rose over the horizon again, bringing a new day filled with love, hope and peace for every being living in this galaxy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, that's it. The start of this chapter is something I have written in a similar way when I started writing for AO3 in 2014, my first OC Wraith Commander Raven likes to hunt his human consort Cameron Mitchell down as well. Combining my two favorite fandoms Stargate Atlantis and football is always fun, I've even made my poor Wraith watch a final of the football World Chamionship one time. :-D This time, it was the other way around, my beloved footballers living in a future world where amazing creatures need to feed on their life-energy in order to survive.  
> Some of the songs I've listened to while writing this story:
> 
> 'My Destiny' from the group 'Third Realm'  
> 'Dance With The Devil' from the 'D-Devils'  
> 'Neuromancer' from 'Billy Idol'  
> 'Maschine' from 'Unheilig'  
> 'Mein Teil' from 'Rammstein'  
> 'Red Right Hand' from 'Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds'  
> 'Human' from 'Rag'n Bone Man'  
> 'Eclypse' from the group '100%'  
> 'You think you're a man' from 'Divine'
> 
> There are more but these were those which influenced me the most.
> 
> A million thank you to all of you who followed this for me very special story along, left kudos and comments, they all mean so much to me. <33

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [A Golden Love](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13192086) by [mariothellama](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mariothellama/pseuds/mariothellama)




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